Archaeology in Europe

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Controversy over Shropshire woman not declaring find

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:52:00 +0000

On 25 February a Ludlow woman became the first person in the UK to face the full wrath of the Treasure Act for failing to report an ancient artefact find.

Kate Harding, 23, pleaded guilty to breaching the act, was given a three month conditional discharge and ordered to hand over an artefact almost 700 years old.

The artefact was a silver, round, stamped, 14th Century, 2cm (0.8in) circle resembling a coin in all normal respects, except - crucially - it was double the normal thickness.

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Exciting find for museum bosses

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:46:00 +0000

A ROMAN quern stone discovered near Chaigley has sparked excitement in archaeological circles.

The stone was taken into Ribchester Roman Museum's 'Finds Day' on Saturday by a local woman and Curator Patrick Tostevin says it was definitely "the highlight of the day."

"It is the sort of object that would suggest there might be some sort of hitherto undiscovered Roman settlement in the area," said Patrick. "It was an absolutely wonderful day and I was delighted with the response we had. A steady stream of people brought in a variety of different objects from coins to Chinese terracotta.

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How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:26:00 +0000

To the Asiatics, as they were called, the lush Nile Delta, with its open marshlands rich with fish and fowl, was a veritable Garden of Eden. From earliest times, Canaanites and other Asiatics would come and settle here. Indeed, this is the background of the Biblical story of the famine in Canaan that led to Jacob’s descent into Egypt (Genesis 46:1–7).

By the beginning of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (a few years after 2000 B.C.E.), the pressure of immigrants on the eastern Delta was so strong that the Egyptian authorities built a series of forts at strategic points to “repel the Asiatics,” as the story of Sinuhe tells us.

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Archaeologists survey Roman road

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:22:00 +0000

The history of the road, which runs from Winchester to Chichester, is to be investigated and people are invited to get involved in a field visit.

People wanting to get a closer look at the ancient road should attend a workshop on Saturday March 20, held at the Milburys Pub in Beauworth, Hampshire.

The meeting starts at 11am with lunch at the pub. A field visit will follow in the afternoon.

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Staffordshire Hoard team wins award

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:48:00 +0000

Birmingham City Council Cabinet Member for Leisure, Culture and Sport, Cllr Martin Mullaney, today congratulated the Staffordshire Hoard team after it scooped a top archaeology award.

The team that recovered the Anglo-Saxon treasure, including staff from Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, have won the Current Archaeology award for ‘The Best Rescue Dig of the Year, 2010’.

And Cllr Mullaney believes it is a richly deserved accolade. He said: “This was a team effort from day one and everyone involved deserves credit. A number of organisations have played a part and things have run smoothly – from the excavation right the way through to the fundraising campaign.”

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Oratory to be revealed for St Piran's Day 2011

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:47:00 +0000

TODAY the tiny 9th century oratory of St Piran lies buried deep in the dunes above Perranporth. But not for long. The Historic Environment Service of Cornwall Council and the St Piran Trust will work with English Heritage and Natural England to uncover the historic church which has been overwhelmed by shifting sands for the best part of a thousand years.

Until an eagerly-awaited exploratory dig took in January, no-one had seen the church since 1980 when it was reburied to protect it from wind, weather and vandalism. No-one was quite sure how deep it lay inside the man-made mound and this information was vital for planning the dig.

Archaeologists from the Historic Environment Service had permission to dig several trenches. The main trench was cut into the mound itself in order to find the floor level and, with luck, to locate the door of the oratory. Hopes were high but the task was hardly straightforward.

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Treasures from Orkney Viking burial grave to go on show at York Jorvik

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:45:00 +0000

An iron sword, gaming pieces and an arsenal of arrows from a set of antler bone carvings found next to corpses in Viking graves will be revealed by archaeologists in York this May.

The Jorvik Viking Centre has obtained the burial hoard from The Orkney Museum, which has held the remains since they were discovered alongside the bodies of an elderly woman, middle-aged man and a child on the island town of Scar in 1991.

Designed to follow the souls of the dead into the afterlife in a Viking boat grave, they were almost lost forever.

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Neolithic man puts major bypass on hold

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:43:00 +0000

Thousands of years ago our Neolithic forebears were hunting wild game with flint arrows in the hills overlooking what is now Ballymena. Now they’re still making their presence felt, delaying a road dualling scheme that was aimed at easing congestion between the town and the M2.

The A26 Ballee Road East to M2 Ballymena bypass dualling scheme was due to be completed by the end of this month. But bad weather and the discovery of rare Neolithic remains have pushed that deadline back to late summer, costing tens of thousands of pounds.

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New exhibition due to arrive at the Florence Archaeological Museum

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:40:00 +0000

People staying in Florence hotels next month may find that a new exhibition at the Florence Archaeological Museum could be of interest.

Entitled Abu Simbel - The Rescue of the Temples, Man and Technology, it features installations relating to the relocation of a host of "colossal temples" in order to protect the monuments from submersion during the construction of the Aswan Dam almost 50 years ago, What's On When informs.

Opening in April, the exhibition is likely to be interesting, allowing visitors not only to view the temples themselves, but to also understand more about the processes used to preserve them.

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Nail from Christ's crucifixion found?

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:38:00 +0000

The four-inch long nail is thought to be one of thousands used in crucifixions across the Roman empire.

Archaeologists believe it dates from either the first or second century AD.

The nail was found last summer in a decorated box in a fort on the tiny isle of Ilheu de Pontinha, just off the coast of Madeira.

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Stone Age Engravings Found on Ostrich Shells

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:36:00 +0000

Don’t laugh—researchers say a cache of ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers.

The unusually large sample of 270 engraved eggshell fragments, mostly excavated over the past several years at Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa, displays two standard design patterns, according to a team led by archaeologist Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux 1 in Talence, France. Each pattern enjoyed its own heyday between approximately 65,000 and 55,000 years ago, the investigators report in a paper to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Engraved Eggs Suggest Early Symbolism

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:50:00 +0000

What do Homo sapiens have that our hominid ancestors did not? Many researchers think that the capacity for symbolic behaviors—such as art and language—is the hallmark of our species. A team working in South Africa has now discovered what it thinks is some of the best early evidence for such symbolism: a cache of ostrich eggshells dated to about 60,000 years ago and etched with intricate geometric patterns.

This fits with other recent suggestions of symbolism from South Africa. For example, last year researchers reported pieces of ochre etched with what may be abstract designs and dated to 100,000 years ago at BlombosCave on the Southern Cape; similar etchings dated to about 77,000 years ago were previously reported from Blombos. The Blombos team argued that this represented a continuous, long-standing symbolic tradition, but some archaeologists question whether such etchings qualify as true symbolic behavior.

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Can you help Salisbury Cathedral identify 15th century gothic text?

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:34:00 +0000

Gothic text recently discovered behind the Henry Hyde Monument on Salisbury Cathedral’s south aisle wall, now thought to date from the 15th century, has some lines of text that experts have been unable to identify. The Cathedral is appealing for people to help solve the mystery.

Tim Tatton-Brown, the cathedral’s Consultant Archaeologist, said: “My colleague Dr John Crook has made a comprehensive detailed photographic record of the script and subsequently enhanced the letter forms on his computer. Study of this by specialist academics is leaning towards the text being written in the 15th century, a period when English was, for the very first time, being used just occasionally in preference to Latin which was then ‘the norm’.”

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Revealed: The African queen who called York home in the 4th century

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:32:00 +0000

Startling new forensic research has revealed that multicultural Britain is nothing new after discovering black Africans were living in high society in Roman York.
A study of various remains and artefacts from the 4th century at the Yorkshire Museum shows North Africans were living there thousands of years ago.

The most exciting results came from analysis of the so-called 'Ivory Bangle Lady' whose remains were found in 1901 on the city's Sycamore Terrace.

Her skull was found buried with a range of jewellery including jet and elephant ivory bracelets, earrings, pendants and a glass mirror indicating she was wealthy and was of high social status.

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Campaigners hit £200,000 target to save Colchester's Roman circus

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Campaigners in Colchester hit their target yesterday of raising £200,000 towards saving the only Roman chariot-racing circus ever found in Britain. Nothing remains above ground except a few stones, but the campaigners aim to buy a Victorian garden which covers a crucial part of the track: the starting gates from which the chariots, pulled by four horses, would have raced past raked seating for 15,000 spectators – more than twice the population when Colchester was a Roman town.

Most of the money came in small donations from local people. They organised events including a chariot and two horses hurtling around the car park before Colchester United's match against Oldham on February 20.

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Thracian gold treasure to be first displayed in Hungary

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:28:00 +0000

The first exhibition in Hungary of the gold treasures of the Thracian kingdom, which flourished on Bulgaria's present territory 3,000 years ago, will open in Nagykanizsa (SW) on March 19, organiser Csilla Kofalvi said.

The unique find unearthed ten years ago in the region of Kazanlak will first be shown outside Bulgaria, she said.

Entitled "The Valley of Thracian Kings", the exhibition will feature King Seuthes III's gold death-mask, life-size bronze bust and his gold ring, as well as jars and vases, gold jewellery and breast-plates.

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Pompeii to Offer Live Excavation Experience

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:25:00 +0000

Visitors to Pompeii will be able to experience a live dig next month in the ancient Roman town that was buried in Mount Vesuvius' catastrophic eruption in 79 A.D.

The site of the open-door excavation is the so-called House of the Chaste Lovers, a building that came to light in 1987 but which has always been closed to the public

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The university professor who stood up against dumbing down of degrees

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:04:00 +0000

Paul Buckland refused to pass students who didn't understand the basics of archaeology - and he's just one of many academics under pressure to raise the marks of undeserving students. So will Buckland's legal victory halt the destruction of standards in some universities, asks Julie Henry

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Early Humans Used Brain Power, Innovation and Teamwork to Dominate the Planet

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:33:00 +0000

As a species of seeming feeble, naked apes, we humans are unlikely candidates for power in a natural world where dominant adaptations can boil down to speed, agility, jaws and claws. Why we rose to rule, while our hominin relatives died out, has long been a curiosity for scientists.

The study of our human nature encompasses a variety of fields ranging from anthropology, primatology, cognitive science and psychology to paleontology, archaeology, evolutionary biology and genetics.

Representatives of each of these disciplines gathered February 19-22 at a workshop, "Origins of Human Uniqueness and Behavioral Modernity," staged by Arizona State University's Origins Project to discuss recent advances in their respective fields.

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Roman urn contains human ashes

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:19:00 +0000

AN URN discovered during the excavation of a large Roman site in Cullompton used to contain human remains for burial.

The 2,000-year-old vessel, which is whole and unbroken, was dug up during construction work on the Millwood Homes site in the centre of the town.

It was x-rayed at Exeter Airport because it was too large for the machines at the city’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum.

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Roman remains in York are 'elite' African woman

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:18:00 +0000

Archaeologists have revealed the remains of what they say was a "high status" woman of African origin who lived in York during Roman times.

Academics say the discovery goes against the common assumption that all Africans in Roman Britain were low status male slaves.

Remains of the Ivory Bangle Lady, as she has been named, were studied in Reading using forensic techniques.

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"Vampire of Venice" Unmasked: Plague Victim & Witch?

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:12:00 +0000

A female "vampire" unearthed in a mass grave near Venice, Italy, may have been accused of wearing another evil hat: a witch's.

The 16th-century woman was discovered among medieval plague victims in 2006. Her jaw had been forced open by a brick—an exorcism technique used on suspected vampires in Europe at the time.

The discovery marked the first time archaeological remains had been interpreted as those of an alleged vampire, project leader Matteo Borrini, a forensic archaeologist at the University of Florence in Italy, said when the skull was first revealed in March 2009.

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Virtual Stonehenge goes online

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:00:00 +0000

You can now explore Stonehenge from your living room thanks to a new online virtual representation of the historically significant site.

Created by Heritage Key, which has previously created a virtual tour of the tomb of King Tutankhamen, the Stonehenge project shows you the site at different points in time and follows different characters in order to narrate the history of Stonehenge.

You can already access a virtual representation of Stonehenge in Google Street View.

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Boar badge pinpoints Richard III death at Battle of Bosworth site

noreply@blogger.com (David Beard) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:59:00 +0000

A tiny silver badge of a boar has allowed scientists to finally pinpoint the precise spot where they believe Richard III was killed by Henry Tudor's troops, bringing an end to more than 500 years of feverish debate among archaeologists and academics.

The miniature emblem of the Plantagenet ruler was discovered by experts from the Battlefields Trust during exhaustive excavations of the Fenn Lane site of the Battle of Bosworth - part of a joint project aided by Leicestershire County Council, English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The King was killed in the field in August 1485 during a bloody countryside battle. The boar was his personal symbol.

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