April, 2013. It was a dramatic and unexpected discovery.
Only days into the dig season, excavators were digging into a Byzantine-era structure and discovered a large gold earring. As they dug, they encounteed a second gold earring, then a number of gold coins, scattered across the area. Eventually, a beautifully preserved large gold menorah medallion buried in a depression in the floor emerged, along with a cache of jewelry beneath it. They uncovered traces of fabric on the items. Further analysis indicated that they at one time had been packaged in two separate cloth purses.
Under the direction of archaeologist Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the team had only just begun their dig season when, just 50 meters south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, they found the hoard buried inside a Byzantine structure dating back to the sixth century C.E. The hoard appeared to be divided into two parts, or bundles. One contained the menorah medallion with an attached gold chain and other jewelry and appeared to have been undisturbed since its initial burial in the floor. The other, consisting of 36 gold coins, two gold earrings, a broken gold-plated silver pendant and a pure silver ingot, was found scattered across the floor, showing clear signs that, whoever possessed them 1,400 years ago, didn’t have time to bury them.
According to Mazar, the menorah medallion and the other jewelry items found near it were likely part of a Torah scroll. If so, given the dating of the finds, it would mean that these were the earliest known Torah scroll ornaments ever discovered.
So what is the story behind this hoard?
Historical accounts document that the Persians had controlled Jerusalem before the time the hoard had been buried. But with the rising Christian empire, the Persians, as part of their effort to appease the rising Christian power, began expelling the Jews (who otherwise were previously allowed to return to Jerusalem under Persian authority) from the city. Mazar suggests that the assemblage of items might have represented payment from a group of prominent Jews to help finance the building of a synagogue in Jerusalem, consistent with historical practice. The fact that many of the items were left scattered across the ancient floor suggested a sudden abandonment under urgent conditions, perhaps relating to the expulsion by the Persians.
The discovery was made as part of the ongoing excavations in the Ophel area just south of the Temple Mount. The most recent excavations there, now in their 2nd phase, have turned up inscribed fragments featuring what has been described as an ancient Canaanite script, possibly the earliest alphabetical inscription ever found in Jerusalem, finds dated to the Second Temple, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, and what Mazar and others suggest may be the remains of structures attributed to builders during the period of King Solomon in the 10th century BCE. Past remains have included a section of a massive wall of large, well-dressed stones 70 meters long and 6 meters high. Also uncovered with the wall was a structure interpreted as an inner gatehouse, a royal structure adjacent to the gatehouse, and a section of a corner tower 8 meters long and 6 meters high, built of carved stones.
A detailed account of the discovery can be read in the September 9, 2013 article published in The Trumpet.
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Cover Photo, Top Left: Photo of the Menorah Medallion with chain. Photo courtesy Eilat Mazar
Popular Archaeology’s annualDiscovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
Most people wouldn’t even think about an 18th century refuse pit. But for archaeologists, it can be a veritable goldmine of information about the past. And for archaeological investigators at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and estate near the Virginia banks of the Potomac river in 1990, no pile of garbage was as precious as the one located just south of the famous restored mansion house in the area historically known as the south grove. (Popular Archaeology)
At least 160 fragments of sculptures, possibly of jaguars, were discovered by specialists in the archaeological park of Cihuatan, located in central El Salvador, the Culture Secretariat said. The remains come from “five or six feline sculptures,” found along with pieces of two censers, the secretariat said in a statement. (Latin American Herald Tribune)
The Choquequirao ruins in Cusco, Peru. Choquequirao, which means “cradle of gold” in Quechua, is believed to be the last refuge of Incan rulers who fled Cuzco after its leader Manco Inca was defeated by Spanish conquistadors. The former mountaintop refuge of Incan royalty has elegant halls and plazas much like those of fabled Machu Picchu just 30 miles away. Yet only a handful of tourists visit the ruins each day, those willing to make a two-day hike to reach its majestic solitude. (MercuryNews.com)
Amateur archaeologists have uncovered a massive network of tunnels under the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, Italy. The underground passageways likely allowed thousands of slaves and merchants to keep the estate running without creating any distraction at the street level. (NBCNews.com)
Eight Bronze Age boats discovered in a deep Cambridgeshire quarry are much older than it was first thought, carbon-dating research has revealed. The vessels, found by archaeologists at Must Farm near Peterborough in 2011, have now been dated to about 1500 BC, 200 years older than was first thought. (BBC News)
The Archaeological Survey of India has come under glare after a CAG report revealed in late August that 92 protected monuments in its care cannot be traced, including seven in the Calcutta circle. The ASI has, however, termed the report erroneous and attributed the “wrong” figures to “miscommunication” and a “lack of co-ordination” between the CAG’s performance audit team and its own field officers who may not have been updated about the existence of the monuments. (The Telegraph)
A team of researchers, including experts from Uppsala University in Sweden have developed a miniature device that they claim could revolutionize the way in which archaeologists date objects they discover in the field. The instrument in question is being described as a high-tech microplasma source that is capable of exciting matter in a controlled, efficient way. While the device, which is detailed in a paper appearing in the Journal of Applied Physics, could be used in a wide range of applications in harsh environments, the authors claim that it could drastically change the study of artifacts. (RedOrbit.com)
ARCHAEOLOGISTS working for City of York Council may have found evidence of a medieval church in King’s Square. The team is working to transform the square, and also found the foundations of a Victorian church at the site during the dig. (YorkPress)
About 1.75 million years ago, our human ancestors, the hominins (who you may remember as the hominids), achieved a technological breakthrough. They began to craft stone hand axes (called Acheulean tools) in ways that required more planning and precision than had been used in earlier tool-making processes. Around the same time, these prehistoric people began to talk. (New Hampshire News)
Most people wouldn’t even think about an 18th century refuse pit. But for archaeologists, it can be a veritable goldmine of information about the past. And for archaeological investigators at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and estate near the Virginia banks of the Potomac river in 1990, no pile of garbage was as precious as the one located just south of the famous restored mansion house in the area historically known as the south grove.
Designated the South Grove Midden (a “midden” in archaeological parlance is another name for a trash dump), clues of its existence actually first emerged in 1948, when members of the Mount Vernon grounds crew excavated a hole in the area to plant a holly tree. A number of artifacts dating to the eighteenth century were recovered, telltale clues that the south grove area could be the location of midden deposits formed during George Washington’s lifetime. This would be no surprise, as the area was near the Washington household kitchen and it was common in the 18th century to dispose of household refuse near where it was generated. Spots not far from the back doors of kitchens were considered prime dumping grounds back then.
But it wasn’t until 1990 when archaeologists began to seriously focus on the spot, after a grounds crew again encountered historic deposits while constructing an irrigation system. From 1990 through 1994, full-scale excavations (see image right) recovered nearly 300,000 artifacts, an unprecedented array of household items deposited by the Washington family and enslaved families over several decades in the 18th century.
“The South Grove Midden collection represents the largest and most significant collection of artifacts excavated to date associated with the domestic lives of the Washington households,” says Eleanor Breen, Deputy Director of Archaeology at Mount Vernon. “One evocative artifact after another – from the unique to the prosaic – tells the interconnected stories of Mount Vernon plantation’s earliest residents: Lawrence and Anne Fairfax Washington; George Washington in his bachelorhood and as a newlywed; and the enslaved Africans and African Americans who labored in the mansion and outbuildings.”
Thus as any archaeologist would say, the artifacts in themselves are not the real treasure. It is the information that can be gleaned from them. The South Grove Midden artifacts have afforded scholars and the public alike with a remarkable window on life on George Washington’s estate during the period of its occupation by the Washington family from about 1735 to 1858, and evidence of activities there before and after that period.
Nothing spoke to this more when, in January 2013, the most significant finds were highlighted in a searchable online database of no less than 711 key objects, including photographs, detailed summaries, and catalogue information, all interfaced with documentary and thematic material information that in essence makes them accessible to any visitor. But, says Breen, “the Mount Vernon Midden website is more than an e-museum, it’s a digital humanities effort to present the individual artifacts in layers of both archaeological and historical context.”
“In envisioning and designing the website with Mark Freeman of Stories Past, our goal was to reach a broad audience – from the archaeology enthusiast to the scholar of material culture. The website is structured like a pyramid with the individual object catalogue records at the top (with professional quality photographs that can be zoomed in on for greater detail and unique narrative text explaining the significance of the artifact), more extensive content in the middle (in the form of summaries of artifact sub-assemblages and thematic essays on groupings of artifacts), and the complete artifact catalogue at the base (accessed via www.daacs.org).”
To give an example of just one individual object record, one artifact, known to archaeological enthusiasts and scholars of George Washington as the George Washington trunk plate, is pictured at the website as object no. 2921. It represents both an affirmation of the historicity of George Washington’s experience during the Revolutionary War as well as tangible material witness to his genteel status in 18th century American society:
[Recovered from the South Grove Midden] This oval copper alloy plate, engraved “Gen: Washington,” is identical to a plate affixed to a trunk in the Mount Vernon collection which George Washington is known to have purchased secondhand on April 4, 1776, in Boston, soon after he took up his duties as general of the Continental Army. The plate on the trunk was placed over the initials of the previous owner, a Boston merchant named John Head. Throughout the Revolutionary War, the security of his official correspondence and orders was a perpetual concern for General George Washington. In the intervening weeks between the British evacuation of Boston and his departure to defend Manhattan, Washington obtained the travelling trunk to contain the increasing number of official papers in his possession. The trunk was part of General Washington’s baggage throughout the war, returning with him to Mount Vernon when he retired from military service in 1783. Given the similarity of the two specimens, the excavated plate almost surely had the same origin. The original trunk was made of rawhide, wood, leather and lined with linen. Only the metal hardware (tacks, hinges, and this plate) would survive archaeologically.
This is one of the few artifacts that we have found with George Washington’s name engraved upon it. The other object excavated from the South Grove Midden that can be linked directly back to Washington is the fragment of a silver scabbard collar engraved with part of his monogram (2696). Wine bottle seals with the crest, name, or initials of their past owners are encountered in the archaeological record at Mount Vernon and on other historic sites of the colonial period; however, it appears that George Washington did not have his own. The significance of these formally marked objects relates to an expression of gentility and status. For example, pewter dishes were widely available in the eighteenth century to consumers. However, a simple pewter plate could be elevated and distinguished with the placement of a family crest, as George Washington requested be done on a set of 96 pewter dishes in 1759.
“Other artifacts excavated from the soil layers of the midden give us pause to consider how Lawrence and George Washington and other elite planters afforded this burgeoning genteel lifestyle,” adds Breen. “A singular artifact called a denier gauge [pictured as object no. 2922 in the database], a small magnifying glass that counted threads per quarter inch of cloth, focuses our attention on the enslaved men and women upon whose labor refined styles of life were based. At the beginning of Washington’s tenure at Mount Vernon, he oversaw approximately 30 Africans and Afro-Virginians, a community whose numbers would increase to over 300 at the time of Washington’s death in 1799. These enslaved individuals worked for the profit of their owners plowing the fields, forging the iron, cooking the meals, and sewing or weaving the cloth – the quality of which was measured and checked by Martha Washington using the denier gauge.”
The database contains much more than objects excavated from the Midden. Also documented are 3,839 invoices and orders, described through both picture and narrative. They constitute the record of his economic life before the Revolutionary War, from 1754 to 1773, including items such as fabrics, seeds, medicines, shoes, foodstuffs, and plantation tools shipped to him on a total of 26 vessels during that time period. Along with the other objects, Mount Vernon archaeologists say that these invoices and orders have helped, and will continue to be a key, to improving our understanding of material culture, consumerism, and economics during 18th century colonial America.
“The South Grove Midden and associated documentary evidence in the form of George Washington’s orders for goods from England and inventories of a local store in the town of Colchester provides the opportunity to study a dynamic period in American history,” says Breen. “What makes the 40-year period before the American Revolution unique is that access to consumer goods appears to have opened up for larger segments of the colonial population through a more sophisticated and far-reaching system of distribution for imported items – an event described as the consumer revolution. The artifacts and documents associated with the site offer an opportunity to explore this transformation through material culture.”
Popular Archaeology’s annualDiscovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
The ongoing debate about when and how anatomically modern humans (“AMH”) made their presence in east Asia has taken another turn with new evidence recovered from a cave in central China. The finds may push back the generally accepted time of their appearance in the region by as much as 50,000 years.
A team of six researchers from four institutions, using high-precision mass spectrometric U-series dating techniques, were able to determine a reliable and constrained date range of between 81 and 101 ka (thousand years) for seven human fossil teeth recovered from the Huanglong Cave in the Hubei Province of central China. The teeth, determined to exhibit anatomically modern human characteristics, were revealed in a layer associated with stone tools and other fossilized animal remains during excavations conducted in 2004, 2005 and 2006 by a joint team from the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The excavations were followed by further fieldwork in 2010 and 2011.
Reports Guangun Shen, et al., “the existence of localized thin flowstone formations bracketing the hominin [ancient human] fossil-bearing deposits enables us to firmly constrain the human teeth into the range between 81 ka and 101 ka, probably the most narrow time span for any hominin fossil beyond 45 ka in China”.* Flowstones are sheetlike deposits of calcite formed over many thousands of years, the result of water flowing down the walls or along the floors of caves. They are a type of speleothem, or secondary mineral deposit such as a stalagtite or stalagmite, often found in ancient cave systems.
According to the study authors, the finding comes after a series of other relatively recent excavations and reports that have produced “a growing body of evidence for the possible presence of AMH in eastern Asia as early as 100 ka ago”.* They refer here to some limestone caves in southern China where scientists have come up with more ancient dates, including Liujiang (between 111 and 139 ka), Ganqian (between 94 and 220 ka), Bailiandong (more than 160 ka), and Zhirendong (more than 100 ka) in Guangxi. The Guanglong Cave results, however, are considered the most reliable because of the much narrower constraining range of 81 to 101 ka as determined by the latest U-series dating technology.
These new findings have challenged the prevailing theory among scientists that anatomically modern humans were not present in China or east Asia until roughly around 40,000 – 50,000 years ago. This is based on earlier findings at a number of sites across China and east Asia that point to a ‘gap’ between 100 ka and 40 ka ago lacking any human fossils, more specifically between the latest archaic humans and the earliest modern humans, and genetic studies of present-day Chinese populations that have suggested a late appearance of AMH in eastern Asia.
But this previous data, maintains Shen, et al., was generated using older, less reliable dating techniques and excluded fossils claimed to represent AMH. “Based on our work on the sites of H. erectus (an earlier form of human) and of both archaic and modern H. sapiens over the past twenty plus years, we argue that the temporal framework in China has been artificially ‘compressed and gapped,’ meaning that due to limitations in previous dating techniques and practices, the ages of Chinese hominin fossils have been significantly postdated (compressed), and that a temporal gap between archaic H. sapiens and AMH has been artificially created (gapped).”*
Regarding the genetic studies, they argue that “more solid skeletal discoveries, along with parallel studies in relevant disciplines are needed to reconcile the geochronology and the molecular clock.”*
Perhaps even more significant, the researchers suggest that the entire timeline for hominin (ancient human) presence in east China should be shifted back earlier in time and should be continuous (without the gap), based on updated research. This includes the advent of H. erectus at more than 400 ka old, rather than the current 230 ka; archaic H. sapiens at more than 200 ka, instead of ca. 110 ka; and the emergence of AMH at around 100 ka or earlier.
Concludes the team: “The newly established timeline for hominin fossils in China, as a result of more meticulous stratigraphic work and the advancement in dating techniques, demands a reexamination of hominin fossils and associated materials in a more coherent chronological context in China.”*
Details of the study have been published in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution as Mass spectrometric U-series dating of Huanglong Cave in Hubei Province, central China: Evidence for early presence of modern humans in eastern Asia.
Popular Archaeology’s annualDiscovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
The ongoing debate about when and how anatomically modern humans (“AMH”) made their presence in east Asia has taken another turn with new evidence recovered from a cave in central China. The finds may push back the generally accepted time of their appearance in the region by as much as 50,000 years. A team of six researchers from four institutions, using high-precision mass spectrometric U-series dating techniques, were able to determine a reliable and constrained date range of between 81 and 101 ka (thousand years) for seven human fossil teeth recovered from the Huanglong Cave in the Hubei Province of central China. (Popular Archaeology)
The most precise chronology of Early Egypt yet suggests the country formed much more quickly than previously thought. The new finding reveals a robust timeline for the first eight kings and queens of Egypt, including, in order of succession, King Aha, King Djer, King Djet, Queen Merneith, King Den, King Anedjib, King Semerkhet and King Qa’a. The accession of Aha to the throne is often thought to define the start of the Egyptian state, with the new study suggesting (with 68 percent probability) that he became king between 3111 B.C. and 3045 B.C. (NBCNews)
Researchers who dug up King Richard III’s skeleton say they appear to have discovered another problem the hunchback monarch had during his brief and violent reign: parasitic worms in his guts that grew up to a foot long. In those remains, dug up last year beneath a parking lot in Leicester, the researchers say they discovered numerous roundworm eggs in the soil around his pelvis, where his intestines would have been. (The Washington Post)
An international team of scientists from Switzerland, Australia, Germany and the United States has discovered remains of three hunter-gatherer settlements in the western Amazon. Their study, reported in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, focuses on a region in the Bolivian Amazon thought to be rarely occupied by pre-agricultural communities due to unfavorable environmental conditions (Sci-News.com)
The average height of men has risen by almost 11cm since the mid-19th century, experts have found. Data was collected on hundreds of thousands of men from 15 European countries. For British men, the average height at age 21 rose from 167.05cm (5ft 5in) in 1871-75 to 177.37cm (5ft 10in) in 1971-75. A public health expert said height was a “useful barometer” but it was crucial to focus on improving health overall. (BBC News)
Here is another clue for scientists engaged in figuring out how human evolution worked: Just like in the movies, researchers are finding that the good guys always win in the end.
This is the message from results of a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of September 2, 2013. The study was conducted by a duo of University of Pennsylvania biologists. Postdoctoral researcher Alexander J. Stewart and associate professor Joshua B. Plotkin analyzed the outcome of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, as played continuously by a large, evolving population of players.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a game that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their collective best interests to do so. In the game, if both players cooperate, they both receive a payoff. If one cooperates and the other does not, the cooperating player receives the smallest possible payoff, and the defecting player the largest. If both players do not cooperate, they receive a payoff, but it is less than what they would gain if both had cooperated. In other words, it pays to cooperate, but it can pay even more to be selfish.
The significance of the research is that, while previous researchers have suggested that cooperative strategies can be successful, for the first time, Stewart and Plotkin offer mathematical proof that the only strategies that succeed in the long term are generous ones. It flies in the face of the principle of “survival of the fittest”, which has traditionally underpinned the Darwinian concept of biological evolution.
“Ever since Darwin,” Plotkin said, “biologists have been puzzled about why there is so much apparent cooperation, and even flat-out generosity and altruism, in nature. The literature on game theory has worked to explain why generosity arises. Our paper provides such an explanation for why we see so much generosity in front of us.”
The research differed from previous studies in another way. Instead of a one-on-one competition, they envisioned a population of players matching up against one another, as might occur in a human or animal society in nature. The most successful players would get to “reproduce” more, passing on their strategies to the next generation of players.
It quickly became clear to the Penn biologists that extortion strategies wouldn’t do well if played within a large, evolving population because an extortion strategy doesn’t succeed if played against itself.
“The fact that there are extortion strategies immediately suggests that, at the other end of the scale, there might also be generous strategies,” Stewart said. “You might think being generous would be a stupid thing to do, and it is if there are only two players in the game, but, if there are many players and they all play generously, they all benefit from each other’s generosity.”
In generous strategies, which are essentially the opposite of extortion strategies, players tend to cooperate with their opponents, but, if they don’t, they suffer more than their opponents do over the long term. “Forgiveness” is also a feature of these strategies. A player who encounters a defector may punish the defector a bit but after a time may cooperate with the defector again.
After simulating how some generous strategies would fare in an evolving population, Stewart and Plotkin crafted a mathematical proof showing that, not only can generous strategies succeed in the evolutionary version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, in fact these are the only approaches that resist defectors over the long term.
“Our paper shows that no selfish strategies will succeed in evolution,” Plotkin said. “The only strategies that are evolutionarily robust are generous ones.”
The discovery, while abstract, helps explain the presence of generosity in nature, an inclination that can sometimes seem counter to the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest.
“When people act generously they feel it is almost instinctual, and indeed a large literature in evolutionary psychology shows that people derive happiness from being generous,” Plotkin said. “It’s not just in humans. Of course social insects behave this way, but even bacteria and viruses share gene products and behave in ways that can’t be described as anything but generous.”
“We find that in evolution, a population that encourages cooperation does well,” Stewart said. “To maintain cooperation over the long term, it is best to be generous.”
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Source: Adapted and edited from a University of Pennsylvania press release.
Cover Photo, Top Left: Allegorical personification of Charity (Generosity) as a mother with three infants by Anthony van Dyck. Wikimedia Commons
Popular Archaeology’s annualDiscovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
Anabel Ford is dedicated to decoding the ancient Maya landscape. While living in Guatemala in 1978, she learned from local people that the Maya forest was an edible garden when she mapped a 30-km transect between the Petén sites of Tikal and Yaxhá. In 1983, she discovered and later mapped the Maya city El Pilar. In 1993, after settlement survey and excavations, she launched a multidisciplinary program to understand the culture and nature of El Pilar. Ford’s publications are cited nationally and internationally as part of the foundation of Maya settlement pattern studies. Her archaeological themes are diverse, appearing in geological, ethnobiological, geographical, and botanical arenas and locally in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. Her concern for management of cultural monuments, in-situ conservation, and tourism appear in Getty publications.
El Pilar. The name means “watering basin”, reflecting its rich water resources. Spread across the border between western Belize and northeastern Guatemala, this ancient Maya city center is considered the largest site in the Belize River region, boasting over 25 known plazas and hundreds of other structures, covering an area of about 120 acres. Monumental construction at El Pilar began in the Middle Preclassic period, around 800 BCE, and at its height centuries later it harbored more than 20,000 people.
It thus may come as a surprise for many visitors when they actually see the site. Its immensity belies the view — for this city, unlike many of its well-known counterparts in Belize and Guatemala — sites like Tikal and Caracol — remains mostly cloaked in its dense tropical shroud. With the exception of a fully exposed Maya house structure, pyramidal temples appear as hills covered with vegetation and trees, ball courts are still disguised like natural extensions of the jungle landscape, and elite residential buildings are detectable only as mere rises beneath the forest canopy. But this is not because archaeologists have not had the opportunity to excavate the site like they have at the famous tourist-draws of Tikal or Caracol. It is actually by design.
At El Pilar, conservation is foremost, and the concept, known as “Archaeology Under the Canopy” says that the monuments are best protected beneath the forest foliage. The objective is thus to selectively and partially expose only strategic areas, features that would visually demonstrate essential knowledge about the site. In addition, in keeping with the focus at El Pilar on researching Maya lifeways (as opposed to the lives and remains of rulers and elites), the site is both an open-air laboratory and showcase for learning about and demonstrating the traditional Maya agricultural practice of forest gardening, a methodology for sustainability thought to be a key to the prosperity and florescence of the Maya civilization.
Now, consistent with its pioneering place in Maya studies, El Pilar has become the focus of a new frontier in Maya archaeology — one that promises to revolutionize the way archaeologists and other specialists approach the discovery process at archaeological sites and areas.
Above and below: Most of the El Pilar structures remain enshrouded in foliage, a natural strategy for conserving its remains. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar Program
Archaeological survey in the verdant tropical Maya forest has presented long-standing challenges to finding undiscovered archaeological sites. The dense foliage and forest canopy have made sure of that. Partly because of this and other research priorities, traditional mapping strategies have involved focused surveys of specific areas, usually around major centers, such as Tikal, and only later in areas outside of centers, such as my work between Tikal and Yaxhá. These settlement data have given us samples of ancient landscapes that can be projected across broader areas, as I have done with GIS (Geographic Information Systems). While traditional survey techniques have provided results in spite of the constraints of the dense forest, new and cutting edge technology, called LiDAR, may be a game-changer for archaeology in tropical areas. LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) is a laser-based remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges, or variable distances, to the Earth. It is capable of penetrating overlying vegetation and forest canopies, imaging at very high spatial resolutions with extraordinary accuracy. These light pulses, combined with other data recorded by airborne systems, produce precise points in a three-dimensional space to create a “point cloud” image for mapping. The technique was first applied in Maya archaeological research by University of Central Florida anthropologists Arlen and Diane Chase to produce 3-D maps of Caracol in 2010. In a recent publication of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Chase and others have argued that LiDAR is poised to generate a fundamental shift in Mesoamerican archaeology, potentially transforming research in forested areas worldwide. Using this technology, we can now readily identify structures such as hidden temples and locate them precisely on the landscape with extraordinary spatial precision. Is this the new magic wand? How will archaeologists integrate this new tool? What is its potential for discovery?
The Application of LiDAR at El Pilar
Prior to LiDAR, many of the secrets of ancient Maya settlements remained hidden from view. Now, with LiDAR, large and small structures previously undetected can be made initially visible without traditional surveying, clearing and excavation. Successful identification of built structures from LiDAR, however, depends on the use of robust interpretive algorithms to extract terrain features from the data “point cloud”. In other words, LiDAR results must be decoded to interpret cultural elements, and this is a work in progress. Inspection of the visualization results provides the “targets” for validation. These can be obvious residential compounds, suspected monuments, and more subtle features of small structures, depressions, and quarries. Validation in the field is critical to build the strategies for detecting the cultural features, and we need to look at all types of features, both those we think are positive ancient characteristics, as well as ambiguous or negative elements.
El Pilar is an ideal location for developing a new field study protocol to integrate the LiDAR technology with traditional field survey. We have been working at the site for over 20 years and have mapped the major architecture. Human activities have had little subsequent impact on the Maya forest around the site since the abandonment of the Classic Maya infrastructure around CE 900. Now a binational protected area in Belize and Guatemala, there is a need for an understanding of the cultural remains as part of the management planning process. Thus, the results of our new validation project of the LiDAR imagery will not only develop a comprehensive map of the Maya landscape of El Pilar for research, but will also provide vital input for the adaptive management of the site in Belize and Guatemala.
Exploring Solutions Past ~The Maya Forest Alliance, a conservation and sustainability organization based at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), recently received a gift from Mayaniquel, S.A., a Guatemalan company, of airborne LiDAR imagery covering the entire 20 sq km area of the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve. At the highest resolution of c. 20 laser pulses per sq m, imaged from a helicopter, data were gathered on forest canopy (height and density) and ground surface into an enormous “point cloud” data set that incorporated all of the observations. We have processed the LiDAR data using Terrascan and custom feature extraction software. We have used these images to target potential positive cultural features, questionable elements, as well as negative areas at El Pilar.
What We Have Accomplished
The 2012 two-month season was aimed at building a field validation scheme and a protocol for moving from the LiDAR imagery in the context of the GIS to the field using GPS devices. We focused on a detailed area of c. 2 sq km in the core of the city.
Based on the LiDAR, we prepared targets for the field validations. This included feature classifications as built structures, liner alignments, ambiguous objects, and irregular surfaces. In the field, we assembled coordinates based on the LiDAR features. These coordinates were input into the GPS and used to navigate to the actual targets. Once we arrived at the features, we verified their qualities, confirming Maya structures with sketch maps. Nehanda Higinio, a Belizean environmental studies student working with the El Pilar program in Belize, participated in the field work to identify the actual ground features detected by LiDAR. Below, she briefly describes her experience.
Using the GPS tracking system to find locations identified with LiDAR technology, we marked and recorded the different points that were house platforms and limestone quarries, places that the Maya mined for building stone. The slopes were as many as the land snail shells that lay scattered about among pieces of ancient Maya pottery and the fallen leaves from Allspice, Corozol, Ramon and Copal trees………It was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. We looked at our LiDAR map then walked to the actual physical location using a GPS tracking device. When we got to each point we looked at our LiDAR map to see if what we thought we saw on the map was what we could actually see in real life. We had to also collect notes to describe the area’s density of rainforest and the trees there were identified by Master Forest Gardener Torres. This helped in confirming the data from the LiDAR map.
Pictured above is a large limestone quarry found and verified through this process. Below, ancient houses are found among the trees. (Photos courtesy BRASS/El Pilar Program)
Existing site maps from the field have provided visual correlates of human constructions visible in the LiDAR imagery based on our enhanced GIS visualizations. Unusual complexes have already been detected: a “citadel”-like construction to the east of the main monuments of El Pilar, and a sunken plaza that appears to link the offset causeways. Neither of these features had been recorded before. These discoveries change our understanding of ancient Maya land use and the city of El Pilar, but features like these could only have been proven on the ground with the field validation.
Detail closeup view of the newly discovered citadel feature detected east of the main temples of El Pilar. Citadel is on the right. It was confirmed in the field. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar
In the context of our expanding UCSB Maya Forest GIS, the work with the new El Pilar LiDAR data will create an essential base for the site-specific scale research that will enhance our accumulating GIS layers of air photographs, soil studies, plant identification, archaeological surveys, and excavation data. We have already extracted a complete topographic map of El Pilar and have been able to re-register earlier and less accurate observation data stored in our Maya forest GIS. We can also image cross-sections of the landscape to better understand the relationship of the ground and forest.
Point cloud view of El Pilar looking south. Green is the forest canopy and darker area is the ground surface. Note the cultural feature of major acropolis on the left. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar Program
We now are in the process of developing and analyzing the data. While it may well take the four years it took researchers Bob Carr and Jim Hazard to map Tikal many years ago, our goal in using LiDAR is to not only map El Pilar, but to devise a reliable and repeatable field strategy protocol for the verification of the elements of the imagery for archaeology generally. The amazing preliminary results that are visible with the El Pilar LiDAR speak to the alluded revolution. But the work only begins with the initial and remote GIS processing of the LIDAR data. Without the ground truth inspection and the feedback to refine and adjust the GIS feature extraction algorithms, we would not have confidence in the mapping results.
The ultimate objective will be a GIS and field protocol that will help other archaeologists working with such imagery to discern the nature of their landscapes. With improved and validated LiDAR results, we will build a foundation for understanding the LiDAR imagery and ancient Maya land use. Field validated through the use of traditional archaeological field methods, LiDAR will be the basis for developing and refining new archaeological research mapping methods and for contributing to cultural resource management.
Julie Masis is a freelance journalist based in Cambodia. Her stories have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian, the Boston Globe, Science magazine and in other publications.
There was a deliberate geometry to how they built their city. The streets ran exactly east to west or north to south. On each city block, which measured exactly 100 meters by 100 meters, there were 4 dwellings and 4 ponds, with each rectangular pond located on the north-eastern side of each dwelling. The dwellings were erected on mounds of earth, higher than the rice fields, so they wouldn’t flood during the rainy season – and so were the roads. The temples were built of stones or bricks, and the entrance faced eastward, if the temple was dedicated to Shiva, and westward if it was dedicated to Vishnu. This urban landscape extended for 35 square kilometers – and may have been home to a million people.
This was the city of Angkor, built more than 1,000 years ago.
For years, archaeologists who studied Angkor focused on its temples – because they alone survived the centuries. Everything else – including royal palaces and ordinary people’s homes – was built of wood and vanished.
But now, archaeologists are using a tool that allows them to retrace the streets of ancient cities – by pealing away the forests that cover them. Damian Evans, a landscape archaeologist from the University of Sydney in Australia, first learned about something called LiDAR from Arlen Chase, who was the first to use this technology in archaeological research in Mesoamerica. LiDAR (Laser Interferometry Detection and Ranging) is a system that uses laser pulses to reveal what the earth’s surface looks like below heavily forested areas. Chase used LiDAR in Belize to prove that the ancient Maya had built terraced agricultural fields – while Evans with his team were the first to use it in Asia. Evans’ project cost $250,000 and took 20 hours to survey 300 square kilometers around ancient Angkor. It would have taken years to clear this many kilometers with a machete.
What they found with LiDAR was staggering.
“It’s just amazing,” said Michael Coe, a world-renowned archaeologist who authored a book about Angkor. “In the case of Angkor, we knew where the temples were, but we never really knew what it was like as a city where people lived.”
In addition to creating a map of Angkor’s streets for the first time, archaeologists also found some strange coil-shaped features on the southern side of Angkor Wat – in an area that is now covered by forest and landmines. These embankments are 10-15 meters high and were created in a spiral pattern, with each bank measuring a meter in height. “We are not sure what they are,” Evans said.
One of the most important discoveries, however, was that Angkor Wat was actually bigger geographically than what had previously been thought. Evans and his team found that the city blocks extended far beyond its moat. “We found that this nicely formally planned grid extends for 35 square kilometers, rather than the 9 kilometers that had previously been mapped from the ground,” he said. “Angkor has been considered to be (among the) cities enclosed by moats or walls, but we found that the town area of the city grids extends far beyond the moat spaces.”
The implication is that Angkor was likely home to a significantly larger population than what had previously been assumed. We know, from Chinese sources, that the kings of Angkor kept censuses. Every year or two, the king would invite a person from every household in the kingdom to come to the city to be counted, according to Coe. The kings of Angkor collected this information in order to know how much they could collect in taxes each year – at the time, taxes were paid in rice. However, the census numbers were written down on paper and have not survived. Estimating the population of Angkor nowadays, therefore, is a guesstimate at best. However, knowing that the city extended for 35 square kilometers means that it may have been home to as many as 750,000 to a million inhabitants, according to the new research. “Angkor was a city the size of New York and that’s impressive in the ninth century,” said Francisco Goncalves, the president of McElhanney Indonesia, the company that adapted the LiDAR system for the Cambodian archaeology project.
Knowing this has shed new light on what may have caused the demise of Angkor. Scholars now suggest that as the city’s population grew, it likely became increasingly hard for the farmers from the countryside to support the urban dwellers. “You would have had a very large population that was not devoted to producing rice,” said Evans. “So they relied on consistent yields of the agricultural hinterland.” According toCoe, a large population may have also been responsible for the decision to move the Khmer capital to another area in the 14th century.
“They overused the land and probably caused a great amount of erosion, clogged up the canals and the whole irrigation system would have collapsed,” he said, adding that this is what happens “when populations grow beyond the agricultural capacity of the land.”
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A view of Angkor Wat and its immediate environs using LiDAR. Top layer: Digital orthophoto mosaic. Bottom layer: LiDAR digital terrain model, revealing what the eye does not see. Red lines indicate modern linear features including roads and canals. Courtesy Damian Evans
In addition to the area around Angkor itself, archaeologists also surveyed a site called Phnom Kulen hill, a 25 x 15 kilometer plateau that is located about 40 kilometers northeast of Angkor. It was on this hill that they discovered another urban landscape – a landscape they say corresponds to the 8th – 9th century city named Mahendraparvata, one of the first capitals of the Khmer Empire, identified in some inscriptions on the doorposts of Angkor. These inscriptions describe a former capital city which was established by king Jayavarman II in the year 802. It was this area that captured media attention all over the world with air segments about Cambodia’s “lost city.”
In the article that Evans and his team just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they described their discovery as “an entire, previously undocumented cityscape etched into the surface of the mountain beneath the forest. This newly mapped urban landscape,” they went on to say, “was previously known primarily from written inscriptions.” However, according to Evans and JB Chevance, the program manager from the Archaeology & Development Foundation who worked with Evans on the Lidar project, the term “lost city” is actually a “misnomer.” The location of the pre-Angkorian capital has been known since the beginning of the 20th century because of the existence of dozens of temples on the Phnom Kulen mountain, including one pyramid temple that “looked very much like a royal temple of the King,” according to Evans and Chevance. But thanks to the LiDAR survey, archaeologists “moved from a situation where we had points on a map to the entire urban fabric that connects these points,” Evans said. As at Angkor, here the LiDAR was used “to see through” the cover of cashew nut plantations and forest foliage to create a three-dimensional map of the topography. The archaeologists mapped major and minor roads – stretching for 8 kilometers along east-west or north-south directions – as well as canals, dikes and ponds. The map of Mahendraparvata also confirmed the location of the 600 x 40 meter royal palace, which had been built of wood and disappeared. “With the LiDAR, we now have a very precise image of that site. It’s one of the main sites because all the roads are directed to it,” Chevance said.
In addition to this, archaeologists identified several geographically-oriented topographical anomalies that they could not identify or explain, according to Chevance. The next step will be to explore these features on the ground – not an easy task as large areas of the mountain have not been cleared of landmines.
Like Angkor, the city of Mahendraparvata was eventually abandoned, the capital moved to Angkor, and Mahendraparvata became a point of interest only for Buddhist pilgrims in the 16th century, according to Chevance. Indeed, there seems to be a tradition in Cambodia of abandoning the capital city and re-establishing it in another location. After Angkor, Cambodia’s capital moved to Lonvek in the 15th century, back to Angkor for a brief period in the 16th century, then to Oudong in the 17th century, and eventually to present day Phnom Penh in the 19th century. Perhaps, Chevance hypothesized, each king wanted to have the capital in his own hometown. Or perhaps the location of the capitals in different parts of the kingdom was testimony to the varying powers of the different royal houses, Evans said.
“People look at the movement of the royal court and imagine that it implied the movement of a large number of people,” Evans said, explaining that this is not necessarily what happened. “It could just be competing royal houses where one royal house gains power over another one.”
Shaded relief map of terrain beneath the vegetation in the Phnom Kulen area, with elevation derived from the LiDAR digital terrain model. Green denotes previously-documented archaeological features; areas shaded red contain newly-documented features indicative of an extensive urban layout. Data and image courtesy Archaeology and Development Foundation – Phnom Kulen Program
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LOOKING AHEAD
Evans is currently engaged in raising more funds to continue exploring Cambodia with LiDAR. One of the locations he would like to survey is the largest enclosing wall in Southeast Asia, located in the Preah Vihear Province in the north of Cambodia. This earthen wall, called Preah Khan of Kampong Svay, is 5 x 5 kilometers in length and 40 meters tall in some areas – yet no one knows why it’s there.
“It’s huge – absolutely huge,” Evans said. “It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
Archaeologists in neighboring Thailand are also becoming interested in the technology. Goncalves is looking into cooperating with Thai archaeologists to study ancient rice fields in the northeast of the country, an area now covered by forest – and to map the ancient road that once connected Angkor to the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya.
“A lot of that (road) has been obscured and taken over by the forest. There had to be settlements where people stopped,” he said
Overall, researchers said, Lidar will be just as revolutionary in archaeology as carbon dating – especially in tropical areas.
“Carbon dating gave us control of time, but what LiDAR does is it gives us control of space,” said Chase.
LiDAR uses light to measure distance. That’s according to Francisco Goncalves, of the Jakarta-based company McElhanney, the group that adapted the technology to the Cambodian archaeology project.
“You know the position of the aircraft, you know the speed of light, and you measure the time that it takes for the Lidar’s laser signals to bounce back to the aircraft,” he explains.
“The laser signals don’t actually go through the vegetation, but there are so many of them that some find gaps in the leaves and make it all the way down to the forest floor. Scientists then analyze the data sets, discarding the shorter laser signals and keeping the ones that are longest, and create a pattern,” he said.
To conduct the Cambodian LiDAR survey, Australian archaeologist Damian Evans climbed into a helicopter from which seats had been torn out to make room for computers, batteries and a special display screen for the pilot – and slowly flew in a grid-like pattern, back and forth over the ancient city.
“It’s very difficult for pilots to fly this way,” he said. “Flying by the LiDAR instrument was a bit like playing a video game – the pilot had to keep looking at this screen and keep the helicopter icon within the circle in order to keep strictly in the flight path, which is a very different way for pilots to fly.”
But the new technology is not a panacea. It has its limitations.
“While laser signals can go through vegetation, water causes a problem because it doesn’t reflect the signal back, while foggy, smoky and cloudy weather conditions make the technology difficult to use,” Goncalves said.
Helicopter with LiDAR attached during flight operations over Angkor in April 2012. Courtesy Francisco Goncalves of McElhanney
STUDYING ANGKOR FROM AIR AND SPACE
The temples of Angkor are spread out over such a large area, and are so perfectly symmetrical, that to truly appreciate them, it’s best to get up in the air. Nowadays, a popular way to do it is with a hot-air balloon.
But for archaeologists, it began with the aerial photograph.
At the end of the 1920s, when people first took to the sky, these photographs allowed French archaeologists to appreciate the vast scale of Angkor. “But back then, archaeologists were mostly interested in temples – not in how ancient Cambodian cities were laid out or how their irrigation systems functioned,” says Australian archaeologist Damian Evans.
Then, in the mid-1960s, came the first satellite images of Cambodia. These images were taken by American and Soviet spy satellites and were not declassified until 2003. Covering hundreds of square kilometers, satellite images widened the archaeologists’ perspective further. These pictures are particularly interesting to look at today, Evans says, because they reveal how the Cambodian landscape looked “before the Khmer Rouge messed with it.”
“Instead of respecting the remains of the Angkor period, they (the Khmer Rouge) tried to implement a whole new system of fields and canals and they tried to radically re-engineer the landscape –and they failed,” he said.
The satellite images that were taken before the Khmer Rouge came to power help present-day archaeologists to separate ancient topographic features from the more recent ones, Evans says.
Then came the first radar image, which was taken from the space shuttle in 1994. The radar stripped away some vegetation – like grasses and rice fields – but it was powerless against forests.
Finally, we have the LiDAR system, which can penetrate the thick forest canopies and allows archaeologists to create three dimensional models of the landscape under the vegetation.
Leyland Cecco is a Canadian freelance journalist, as well as a history and politics teacher. He has been based in Cairo, Egypt since 2011. His work deals primarily with social issues and the non-political effects of the Egyptian Revolution. Leyland was also the 2009/10 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Turkey, where he focused on the Kurdish conflict in the southeast of Turkey. He has reported from Uganda, Ethiopia, and Israel/Palestine. His work can be seen at www.leylandcecco.com
Cairo, Egypt — Made from Lebanese cedar, the planks of the ships were masterfully pieced together. Strong and buoyant, these vessels were designed to move gracefully across a cosmic sea to transport a king across the heavens after death. They were Pharaoh Khufu’s “solar” boats, and sailing by his side would be the god Re, the Egyptian sun god, embodying a testament to his piousness as a ruler and the blessings of the gods in his journey through the afterlife. Because the boats’ most important journey was intended to be a cosmic one, they may have seen little or no use in water like other ships. These boats were buried beside his pyramid tomb and hidden for thousands of years.
The king, his body silent in death, kept the secrets of the boats with the desert.
But those who unearth the past take joy knowing that no secret can remain forever. In 1954, while famed Egyptologist Kamal el Mallakh was conducting a routine cleaning at a dig site, he discovered two large wooden funerary boats buried beneath the Great Pyramid on the Giza Plateau. Only one was removed and reassembled (pictured left, and below). It now resides in the Giza Solar Boat Museum, a futuristic looking structure at the base of the Great Pyramid.
The other remained hidden and untouched for over 30 years.
Then, in September of 1987, Japanese researchers reconfirmed the presence of the second boat, resting below large limestone slabs. One month later, a group of archaeologists sponsored by the National Geographic Society drilled a hole in the limestone slabs around the boat to insert a small camera, revealing the wooden planks. They also took air samples and resealed the pit. However, the seal of the entombed boat was breached and water from the museum as well as insects and fungi began to degrade the ancient, vulnerable wood. Extensive analyses were conducted of the wood in 1992 and 1993 by Japan’s Waseda University. A technique known asX-ray diffraction analysis allowed the researchers to conclude that there was severe damage to some parts of the wood, and the preservation and eventual removal of the boat became a priority.
The Solar Boat Museum and excavation site stands dwarfed next to the Great Pyramids. Inside, tourists are able to see the first solar boat extracted from beneath the pyramids. Archaeologists hope that in a few years, tourists will be able to see the second, fully assembled boat. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
Above and below: Details of the first solar boat now exhibited in the Solar Boat Museum. As can be seen, the boat had been remarkably well preserved over the millenia in its 4,500-year-old crypt. It is hoped that the second boat, now under excavation, will exhibit the same results. Photos by Einsamer Shutze, Wikimedia Commons
In June, 2011, the Waseda team began removing the 41 large ancient stone slabs covering the boat. It was a monumental task. Measuring 4 meters long and weighing roughly 14 tons each, the ancients clearly intended them to be worthy gatekeepers, shielding the boat for millennia. After removing the slabs, the excavators then covered the area with chemically treated wood in order to maintain a uniform temperature and humidity within the pit.
It wasn’t until June of 2013 when they actually began removing theboat from its in situ context, piece by piece. Project workers built an excavation hangar to protect the site, equipment, and workers from the elements. A generator powered lights and imaging devices within. It was a hot, cloudless day when (now former) Minister of State for Antiquities Ahmed Eissa arrived at the dig site, flanked by rows of bodyguards. This was to be the first day when, after thousands of years, pieces of the boat would be removed. To mark the importance of this crucial stage in the excavation process, Toshiro Suzuki, the Japanese Ambassador in Cairo and Dr. Sakuji Yoshimura, Egyptology Director for Japan’s Waseda University, joined him.
The goal of the day was for the Minister, along with Dr. Yoshimura, to publicly remove the first few planks of the ship. With mild fanfare, they donned pristine white, hooded suits and masks. Given the frailty of the barge, only a small group was allowed to safely enter. An impromptu tent was set up outside the site, with video monitors to stream the initial extraction of the cedar planks. It provided the only shade as far as the eye could see. A crush of journalists huddled their way from the blazing sun into the tent, eyes trained on the screens as the removal of the cedar strips began.
Since that opening day, the team, wearing white, protective suits, has been racing against a series of environmental adversaries. They are not just tackling the time-induced decay of the organic material, but also the deterioration aided by insects and water damage. Thus, every few seconds there is a staccato exclamation in Japanese or Arabic, and though the shouts of caution are strong, hands and movements are quick, careful and gentle. Like bees in a hive, the workers huddle around each extracted piece. Their hands are methodical; they swaddle the wood in composites of cloth. Soon, other workers will create three-dimensional renderings of each piece, allowing them to painstakingly document, study and account for each part of the boat.
A member of the Egyptian media leaves the enclosed area where the excavation process is underway. As a result of the precautions taken by the excavation team, very few people are allowed to enter the sealed area, and those that enter the excavation site are required to wear masks and suits. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
The wood from the boat, while degraded severely in some areas, is still quite well preserved. Because of the desert climate, archaeologists will have a much easier time preserving the boat than if it had been found in a more humid climate. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
Above and below: Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Ahmed Eissa talks with members of the archaeological team. He helped remove the first pieces of the boat alongside members of the Japanese delegation. Eissa is a specialist in early Coptic Christian and Islamic art. Photos by Leyland Cecco/Trnasterra Media
Archaeologists from the Egyptian and Japanese teams carefully wrap up one of the first pieces of the 4,500 year old solar boat. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
The team from Waseda University will painstakingly digitize all of the pieces that are removed from the site. The aim is to construct a 3d computer model of the boat. This will allow the archaeologists to study and assemble the boat. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
According to University of Berkeley’s archaeologist and Egyptology expert Carol Redmount, solar boats were primarily a practice of the Old Kingdom pharaohs (2686 BCE- 2181 BCE). It was in the 3rd Dynasty, actually before Khufu, that these boats typically became associated with kings. While some royals were buried without any boats, experts believe Khufu was buried with at least 5 different ships. Some of his boat pits were found empty, but these two full-sized ships beside his Great Pyramid truly captured the attention of archaeologists and historians.
And nothing captured their attention more than when the researchers discovered a cartouche bearing the name of Khufu within the context of the second boat. This exciting find led them not only to confirm the ownership of the boat, but also suggested that this boat may even predate the first, fully reassembled boat. If validated, the second boat could rightfully boast the claim as one of the most important archaeological finds of ancient Egypt. Using Carbon 14 dating, along with the evidence of the vessel’s ownership and historical records, the team has placed the age of the ship at more than 4,500 years.
Although Egyptologists are certain the boat now being removed belonged to the late 4th Dynasty ruler Khufu, they are less certain about the function of the boat. Unlike other ancient funerary boats, such as those uncovered in Europe, no bodies were placed within it. This suggests it had a more spiritual and religious function.
“They are usually called ‘solar boats’ because of the belief of many scholars that the boats were for the symbolic use of the king in the afterlife to sail the cosmic waters with the sun god,” says Redmount. “The solar boat interpretation thus suggests that the boats were used to transport the king to the Sun god Re, as well as accompany Re in his voyage across the sky.”
But why did Khufu need five entombed boats? One interpretation of Khufu’s assemblage of buried boats is that four of them were meant to ferry the king to the four cardinal points of the universe, and that the fifth boat would have actually transported the king’s body to the pyramid. And while some boats do in fact show slight usage, it remains the general consensus that the boats had a more spiritual, rather than literal, meaning.
The Pharaoh’s funerary boat was a vessel not just for the funerary practice, but also a vessel for transporting the Pharaoh through the afterlife. Painting, “Funeral of a Mummy”, by Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847 – 1928)
The excavation and restoration project is a partnership between the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, the Japanese Institute for Restoration Research, and, as already mentioned, Tokyo’s famed Waseda University.
At first glance, Japan and Egypt seem to be odd companions. However, for those at Waseda, the union, as well as Japan’s commitment to Egyptology, is well in line with the Japanese approach to archaeology.
Waseda first sent an exploratory mission to Egypt in 1966, and later received approval (the first for an Asian state) to begin excavations in 1971. Among those early trailblazers was a young Sakuji Yoshimura, who would later become the Director of Egyptology at Waseda. While Yoshimura and his colleagues were giddy at the prospects of unearthing untold treasures, they knew that the road would not be easy. Western archaeologists had a 200-year head start over Waseda, and any hope of innovating with Western archaeological techniques was bound to set the team back even further. So they decided to take a uniquely Japanese approach to Egyptology. And because Japan’s ancient religions were polytheistic, unlike the Western tradition of monotheism, the Japanese archaeologists believed they could better understand the motivations of the equally polytheistic ancient Egyptians.
“Japanese culture, history and values must be useful in some way for understanding and reconstructing the ancient Egypt,” Professor Jiro Kondo of Waseda has told the public.
Technological advances have also played a key role in asserting Japan’s place in the field of Egyptology and archaeology. The existence of Khufu’s second boat, confirmed by the Japanese team in 1987, is credited to the team’s use of Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) technology, a pioneering application for archaeology at that time. With GPR, radar pulses are emitted into the ground to create an image of the subsurface. Fortunately for the Japanese team, this method worked particularly well in sandy areas, given the uniform makeup of the ground. Their early use of these non-destructive methods has been invaluable in areas where preservation is key, including the use of CT scans and 3D imaging for reconstruction of the remains of temples and the faces of deceased rulers.
“Japan is not aiming to conduct research in imitation of Western academic systems. But Japan’s advantages lie, I hope, in disadvantages or a void in the Western academic tradition,” says Dr. Kondo.
A member of the Japanese excavation team from Waseda University works alongside Egyptian colleagues to prepare the first piece of wood for transportation. The excavators are under pressure to extract much of the 4, 500 year old boat before it degrades. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
A Japanese archaeologist rushes back to the excavation site to be present as members from the Egyptian and Japanese delegation arrive at the site. Behind him lies the pyramid of Khufu, the pharaoh whose boat the team has been excavating. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
The lead member of the Japanese delegation answers questions for Japanese and Egyptian media. The Japanese archaeologists from Waseda University have leveraged technological advances to aid the excavation process. Photo by Leyland Cecco/Transterra Media
The sister of this solar boat, now housed in the adjoining room and open to eager tourists, underwent more than 20 years of restoration and reassembly. Those intimately involved in this new project hope the advent of applied technology will dramatically drop the time needed to piece together this one. They are cautiously optimistic that the boat will be reassembled within 5 years, even though they have 13 different layers of wood to remove, study, and preserve. The end result will be a fully assembled boat on display at the entrance of the Giza Plateau, while the first solar boat will be moved to the new Egyptian Museum.
Along with other iconic treasures found in Egypt over the past few centuries, this one will likely add more to the world’s knowledge about the life-ways of pharaohs and the ancient Egyptian people. Like the others, it will also fire the popular imagination.
“The boat is a spectacular piece of engineering and building, and also provides insight into technology, trade, and aesthetics” effuses Salima Ikram, head of the Egyptology Unit at the famed American University in Cairo. “It is truly amazing to think that King Khufu actually might have travelled on this boat, after having ordered it to be made from cedar logs brought all the way from what is modern day Lebanon.”
One wonders what Pharaoh Khufu would say if he could be here to see this. Would he want it reburied, or would he regard its public display as an extension of his own eternity, part of his journey through the afterlife that his boat now, in a very real sense, is making possible?
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Cover Photo, Top Left: Painting, “Funeral of a Mummy”, by Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847 – 1928)
It seems that at least some of our prehistoric ancestors, like us, liked to spice up their food for a more palatable cuisine. So concludes a recent study led by Hayley Saul of the University of York. By examining isolated carbonized (burned) food deposits from pottery shards dated from ca. 6,100 to 3,750 BP from three sites in Denmark and Germany, Saul and colleagues identified phytoliths from plant remains that are likely mustard garlic seeds. Phytoliths are created when plants absorb silica from the soil. The silica is deposited within different intracellular and extracellular structures of the plant and, after the plants decay, it is redeposited in the soil in the form of phytoliths (from Greek, “plant stone”), which are rigid, microscopic structures of varying sizes and shapes. These phytoliths are naturally decay-resistant and are thus preserved in soil and other contexts, ready to be discovered and examined by archaeologists thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years later. (Popular Archaeology)
The colorful secret of a 1,600-year-old Roman chalice at the British Museum is the key to a supersensitive new technology that might help diagnose human disease or pinpoint biohazards at security checkpoints. The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind—a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s. The mystery wasn’t solved until 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt. The exact mixture of the precious metals suggests the Romans knew what they were doing—“an amazing feat,” says one of the researchers, archaeologist Ian Freestone of University College London. (smithsonianmag.com)
A team from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) have discovered during a second, follow-up dig, a massive disturbance at the Grey Friars site where the bones of the medieval monarch were found last year. The news comes one year on from when archaeologists began the Search for Richard III at the Grey Friars site on 25 August last year. (Phys.org)
New research conducted by a Trinity College academic in Jerusalem offers new insights into one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is concerned with the mystery of existence. Dr Benjamin Wold, Assistant Professor in New Testament at the Department of Religions & Theology, has been conducting research on the Dead Sea Scrolls known as “4QInstruction” which is believed to have been composed around the mid-2nd century BC. Despite considerable efforts to reconstruct this scroll from multiple copies, experts believe that only about 30 per cent of the document remains. Found in the remaining passages are frequent admonitions to understand the “mystery of existence.” (Phys.org)
One of the most popular sites at Bandelier National Monument is set to reopen Monday. Accessible only by a series wooden ladders and steep stone steps, the kiva at the Alcove House site is located at the edge of a niche some 14 stories above the canyon floor. The site was closed in April due to concerns over structural stability of the kiva. The walls of the structure had loosened and there were other signs of severe erosion. Although the kiva itself will remain closed, park officials said visitors will be able to climb the ladders that lead to the site and take in the view from 140 feet above the canyon floor. (ABC News)
Archaeologists are preparing to extract a sarcophagus discovered at Lincoln Castle and thought to contain “somebody terribly important”. The stone sarcophagus, believed to date from about AD900, was found alongside the remains of a church which was previously unknown. Archaeologists have been on site for almost a year and their work came to an end this week. They believe the sarcophagus could contain a Saxon king or bishop. (BBC News)
The dark secrets of the legend of Beowulf, England’s oldest work of epic literature, are gradually emerging from under a field in eastern Denmark. Archaeologists in the country’s earliest royal ‘capital’ – Lejre, 23 miles west of modern Copenhagen – are investigating the joys of elite Dark Age life in and around what was probably the great royal feasting hall at the violent epicentre of the Beowulf story. (Independent.co.uk)
The heart of the Atacama desert is the driest place on Earth. But that didn’t prevent the first settlers of South America from setting up home there more than 12,000 years ago. Aside from Antarctica, South America was the last continent that modern humans colonised, says Claudio Latorre of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. The first settlers arrived from North America at least 14,000 years ago, but their route south is a mystery. Most researchers assume they travelled through fertile corridors, perhaps down the west coast where seafood was plentiful, at least until you hit the desert. “Extreme environments, such as the Atacama, were naturally assumed to be barriers,” says Latorre. “This was not the case.” (NewScientist)
Archaeologists excavating at the site of Jamestown, the New World’s first successful English colony, have uncovered more features evidencing activity of the first English colonists who arrived on Jamestown Island, Virginia, more than 400 years ago.
Excavations in the churchyard of the 1907 Memorial Church have turned up about 70 feet of the now vanished historic James Fort palisade that defined an eastern extension of the Fort. Reports Dr. William M. Kelso, head of archaeological research at Historic Jamestowne: “The shape of this expansion also seems to be a mirror image of James Fort, where one angle of the triangle was 90 degrees and two were 45 degrees. So a bird’s eye view of the expanded fort might resemble a diamond shape.”
The eastern extension of the Fort has been documented historically, but this is the first time actual evidence of this 70-foot portion has been encountered on the ground through excavation.
Additionally, excavators have uncovered 10 long, foot-and-a-half wide, evenly spaced features extending eastward from the original James Fort space, features they believe were planting furrows dating to the first months of the 1607 settlement. If true, this would make the finding the earliest evidence of English planting, or agriculture, in the New World.
Archaeologists were able to confirm the early date of the furrows by observing that a wall line trench dated to 1608 cut through the furrow marks, clearly suggesting that the furrows predated the 1608 palisade line. These furrows also appeared to match furrows uncovered 10 years before outside the southeast bulwark of the James Fort.
Captain John Smith’s 1607 account mentions instructions given by the Virginia Company (the sponsoring organization for the Jamestown venture) to the first settlers about dividing up into groups, one third to build a fort and the others to prepare the soil and plant. Along with the growing of tobacco, which became the staple crop for the area for decades to come, the first colonists were recorded to have brought seeds of English grains with them to plant as an experiment to determine how well the English crops would grow in the New World. The seeds are documented to have included those of fruits and vegetables brought over from the West Indies (the Caribbean), such as orange trees, cotton, potatoes, melons, pineapple and pumpkins.
“This is the beginning of Southern agriculture. Agriculture — the growing of tobacco — saved the colony and set the economic pattern for the South for centuries,” said senior staff archaeologist David Givens.
“It’s remarkable that these furrows have survived, probably because they were in the churchyard and protected,” Givens added.
Popular Archaeology’s annualDiscovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
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THE world’s oldest temple, Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, may have been built to worship the dog star, Sirius. The 11,000-year-old site consists of a series of at least 20 circular enclosures, although only a few have been uncovered since excavations began in the mid-1990s. Each one is surrounded by a ring of huge, T-shaped stone pillars, some of which are decorated with carvings of fierce animals. Two more megaliths stand parallel to each other at the centre of each ring. (New Scientist)
A study by a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton has found that Neanderthals were more culturally complex than previously acknowledged. Two cultural traditions existed among Neanderthals living in what is now northern Europe between 115,000 to 35,000 years ago. (Science Daily)
A rare Roman fort and marching camp have been discovered in Wales by aerial archaeologists during the hot summer. The major Roman fort complex was spotted on parched grassland near Brecon, Powys, and the marching camp near Caerwent in Monmouthshire. Aerial archaeologist Toby Driver said he could not believe his eyes when he spotted the fort from the air. (BBC News)
Climate change may have driven the collapse of once-flourishing Eastern Mediterranean civilizations towards the end of the 13th century BC, according to research published August 14 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by David Kaniewski from the University of Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France and colleagues from other institutions. (Science Daily)
Ancient molds for daggers with a double-ringed pommel and a straight blade, which have no precedent in Japan or even the nearby Korean Peninsula, have been unearthed at an archaeological site in this western city, cultural property officials said. The Shiga Prefectural Association for Cultural Heritage said Aug. 8 the finds from the Kami-Goten site likely date from between 350 B.C. and A.D. 300. (The Asahi Shimbun)
Archaeologists who unearthed the tombs of two medieval lords are crediting a badger living underneath a farm in the Brandenburg town of Stolpe with an assist on the discovery, various media outlets are reporting. The 12th century burial site is home to a pair of Slavic lords, as well as a cache of artifacts including a sword, bronze bowls, an ornate belt buckle and skeletal remains, UPI reported early last week. While researchers Lars Wilhelm and Hendrikje Ring were the humans in charge of the expedition, however, they unlikely wouldn’t have found the graves without the help of the short-legged omnivore. (RedOrbit)
Archaeologist Susumu Morimoto recently made a landmark discovery that could change today’s views of Japan’s ancient measuring system and of the Yayoi Period (300 B.C. to 300). The head of the International Cooperation Section at the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties discovered that what were believed to be grinding stones from the first half of Yayoi, about 2,400 years ago, are actually weights for scales. (Japan Times)
A victim of its own success and fragility, the World Heritage site of Petra is currently under assessment to limit the safety risks it poses to both tourists and its local population. A two-and-a-half year UNESCO project, which was launched in July 2012 to monitor the slopes in the Siq as a response to the instability of its sandstone rocks, unearthed other underlying challenges facing the site, according to UNESCO. (Skift.com)
Some 1,200 years ago, a prominent Moche woman was laid to rest with great pomp and ceremony. Now archaeologists have uncovered her tomb along with clues that testify to her privileged status and the power she once wielded. The discovery—made over the last couple of weeks at the site of San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque River valley of northern Peru—is one of several that have revolutionized ideas about the roles women played in Moche society. (National Geographic)
The mummified remains of a body found in a Laois bog two years ago have been found to date back to 2,000BC, making it the oldest “bog body” discovered anywhere in the world. The 4,000-year-old remains, which predate the famed Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun by nearly 700 years, are those of a young adult male. He is believed to have met a violent death in some sort of ritual sacrifice. (The Irish Times)
Restoration and excavation works have begun at the Apollo Temple in the Aegean province of Aydın’s Didim district. The excavations continue with the support of Germany’s Halle University, İzmir University and the German Archeology Institute. The excavations will continue for 4 weeks. The excavation work that has been conducted in the temple for 106 years by the German Archaeology Institute was canceled this year for the storage and restoration of materials unearthed during this process. (Hurriyet Daily News)
Mark Kostro stood in the back yard of Brown Hall, looking down at a hole in the ground. Even at a glance, the hole was different from the other features investigated by the students and professional archaeologists who were spending a second summer working behind the William & Mary residence hall in a quest to find archaeological evidence of the Bray School, the 18th-century institution established for the education of free and enslaved black children. (The Virginia Gazette)
Scientists have reconstructed in unprecedented detail how a 13-year-old mummified Inca maiden received increasing amounts of coca plant extracts and alcohol before she became a victim of child sacrifice nearly 600 years ago in the Andes mountains. An international team of researchers has used samples of her hair and X-ray images to provide fresh insights into the final months of the teen, found in a mountaintop shrine in northwest Argentina in 1999 along with the frozen remains of a younger boy and a girl. (The Telegraph)
Broxmouth hill fort in East Lothian, which had first been identified from aerial photographs, was examined before the site was destroyed by a cement works. It had been known that there had been a community of a couple of hundred people living at the fort for almost 1,000 years before the site was abandoned when the Romans left. (The Scotsman)
The mystery of “Mona Lisa’s” real-life muse, which has spawned centuries of speculation, could be solved through DNA testing. Researchers on Friday opened a family tomb in Florence, Italy, to help confirm the identity of Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo, Leonardo da Vinci’s neighbor who is believed to be the woman behind the enigmatic smile. Archaeologists cut a hole in the family crypt where Lisa Gherardini’s husband and sons are buried. (HrTicket.com)
An international team of researchers have announced the discovery of the oldest hominin (early or archaic human) fossil ever found in Western Europe, pushing back the clock on when early humans first colonized Western Europe after their exodus from Africa. The find, a fossil tooth (molar) uncovered through excavations at the site of Barranco León in the Orce region of southeastern Spain, was dated to about 1.4 million years ago using several combined dating techniques, including Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) in combination with paleomagnetic and biochronological data. (Popular Archaeology)
Previous genetic research has indicated the existence of two ancient modern human individuals who passed their genes along to all humans living today, what scientists have referred to as our most recent common ancestors, or MRCAs. The first, designated “Mitochondrial Eve”, lived between 190,000 and 200,000 years ago, and the second, “Y-chromosomal Adam”, between 50,000 and 115,000 years ago. (Popular Archaeology)
Italy’s government is trying to spare the ancient ruins of Pompeii from further neglect. Premier Enrico Letta told reporters that his Cabinet on Friday approved the appointment of a special superintendent to ensure that millions of euros in government and European Union funds for maintenance and restoration of the archaeological marvel and tourist site are properly spent. (The New Zealand Herald)
Brown University archaeologists have uncovered the site of a village in northwest Alaska that’s believed to be at least 200 years old. The village dig is in Kobuk Valley National Park about 20 miles up the Kobuk River from the community of Kiana, according to KSKA. (USAToday)
A busy road that cuts through Rome’s ancient forum to the Colosseum was blocked to private traffic on Saturday, in the first stage of a plan to pedestrianise the area that has angered some locals but which the mayor says is of global importance. In the hours before the closure, motorbikes and cars circled the Colosseum beeping their horns and taking photos to mark the last time they would take a route immortalised by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s scooter ride in the 1953 film Roman Holiday. (Reuters)
More than 4,000 years ago, Dilmun merchants traveled from Mesopotamia to the Indus River, titans of trade and culture before rise of the empires of the Persians or the Ottomans Over a millennia, the civilization that Dilmun created on the back of trading in pearls, copper and dates as far as South Asia faded into the encroaching sands. It wasn’t until an excavation by Danish archaeologists in the 1950s that its past was rediscovered. (Lincoln Daily News)
A team of archaeologists pored over the heavily stratified earth at the excavation site in Avella known as the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, hoping to repair damage done by recent flooding that tore through the area. And although rainwater washed away some artifacts from the site, many of the team members were excited to get their hands dirty on such an important piece of history. (Observer-reporter.com)
Archaeologists say a 1,450-year-old stone monument discovered beneath a Maya temple in Guatemala bears hieroglyphs that hint at a multigenerational tale of power reminiscent of “A Game of Thrones.” “‘Game of Thrones’ … George Lucas … Steven Spielberg … Nobody could write this story the way the Maya actually lived it,” David Freidel, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told NBC News. (NBCNews.com)
Chimpanzees and orangutans were able to remember past events when presented with sensory reminders, a new study shows. Both species found where a useful tool was hidden three years after performing a task only four times. They were also able to recall a unique event two weeks later. The team say their work, published in Current Biology, shows memory for past events is not unique to humans. Chimps and orangutans were presented with two boxes in different rooms, one of which had useful tools, the other useless ones. In order to get a reward they had to successfully retrieve the useful tools. (BBC News)
Archaeologists from the Wiese Foundation, directed by Régulo Franco Jordán, who discovered the Lady of Cao, witnessed an unprecedented event. About one month ago, the group found the remains of a sacrificed woman in the upper platform of the ruins known as Cao while they were excavating the ceremonial floor. The ruins form part of the archaeological complex known as El Brujo, located in La Libertad. (Peru This Week)
Construction work in eastern Mexico exposed an ancient settlement, including 30 skeletons and the ruins of a pyramid, believed to be up to 2,000 years old, archaeology officials announced. At the site of the graves in the town of Jaltipan, southeast of Veracruz, archaeologists also found clay figurines, jade beads, mirrors and animal remains, according to the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH. (NBCNews.com)
Over the past few months, a spate of reports has emerged about the discoveries of several so-called lost cities — most notably Ciudad Blanca in Honduras, Heracleion off the coast of Egypt and Chactun in Mexico. Much of this is due to technological advances: satellite imagery, aerial photography and Google Earth have all aided in the detection of heretofore unseen archaeological sites. No technology, however, approaches the impact of lidar, a light-and-radar machine that can pierce through the thickest, highest forests and vegetation within minutes and has only recently been used in the hunt for lost cities. It was lidar that led explorers to what they call Ciudad Blanca. (New York Post)
The osseous remains of the Red Queen, the enigmatic character from Lakamha, “Place of the big waters”, today known as Palenque, in Chiapas, are being scientifically analyzed in order to date the burial in a more precise manner. It is still unknown as to whether the Red Queen was the wife of the celebrated dignitary Pakal II or if she was a ruler of that ancient Mayan metropolis. (Archaeology News Network)
Archaeologists blame two building companies for destroying part of ancient pyramid in the Lima district of San Martin de Porres. The pyramid El Paraiso, located near the river Chillon, is one of the oldest structures constructed in the Americas, made up of 12 pyramids and covering over 64 hectares. (Peru This Week)
he wind and the waves peeled back layers of Cumberland Island sand last December to reveal a piece of history: the wooden bones of a long-lost cargo ship. Archaeologists surmised from the gunnel and wooden nails that the 100-foot-long vessel was at least 150 years old, possibly a blockade runner used during the Civil War to transport guns, food and soldiers past Union forces. (Savannah Now)
Anyone who stood on a rock ledge a few hundred feet above an ocean-swept river delta could have watched for walruses or whales among the icebergs and searched for woolly mammoths tracking across the barren savannah behind. And those people might well have left traces — thousands of years ago, about 60 miles from Charleston, offshore. Bulls Scarp could be the most fascinating and important archaeological site waiting to be surveyed in the region. There’s just one little problem: That Ice Age rock ledge is under about 140 feet of seawater (The Post and Courier)
Three queens were buried with golden treasures, human sacrifices. It was a stunning discovery: the first unlooted imperial tomb of the Wari, the ancient civilization that built South America’s earliest empire between 700 and 1000 A.D. Yet it wasn’t happiness that Milosz Giersz felt when he first glimpsed gold in the dim recesses of the burial chamber in northern Peru. (National Geographic)
The hair of mummies from the town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile reveals the people in the region had a nicotine habit spanning from at least 100 B.C. to A.D. 1450. (NBC News)
A museum in Sweden will digitise its mummy collection in 3D to allow visitors to unwrap a real mummy in digital form. The mummies from Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm will be digitised by technology which uses photos and X-ray scans to create 3D models. The permanent exhibition is scheduled to open in the spring of 2014. (BBC News)
When archaeologists in Virginia uncovered the skeletal remains in 1996 of one of Jamestown’s first settlers — a young European male designated as JR102C in the catalog — they said he was the victim in what was perhaps Colonial America’s oldest unsolved murder. At the time, archaeologist William Kelso, now director of archaeological research and interpretation at Jamestown Rediscovery, reported that “the lead bullet and shot fragments lodged in his lower right leg contained enough force to fracture his tibia and fibula bones, rupturing a major artery below the knee. JR would have bled to death within minutes.” (NPR)
The discovery in 2003 of Homo floresiensis, affectionately referred to as a ‘hobbit’, took scientists worldwide by surprise, and challenged many things thought to be understood about human evolution. Intense scientific debates followed about the validity of Homo floresiensis and its status as a separate species, and many of these debates continue to this day. (Scientific American)
The beer was full of bacteria, warm and slightly sour. y contemporary standards, it would have been a spoiled batch here at Great Lakes Brewing Company, a craft beer maker based in Ohio, where machinery churns out bottle after bottle of dark porters and pale ales. But lately, Great Lakes has been trying to imitate a bygone era. Enlisting the help of archaeologists at the University of Chicago, the company has been trying for more than year to replicate a 5,000-year-old Sumerian beer using only clay vessels and a wooden spoon. (NYTimes.com)
A small figurine depicting a slim, naked woman was recently found in a Danish field. Strangely, this is the fifth in a series of tiny golden human figurines found recently in the area. (ScienceNordic)
An ancient road leading from Yafo to Jerusalem, which dates to the Roman period (second–fourth centuries CE), was exposed this past fortnight in the Beit Hanina neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. The road remains were revealed in an archaeological excavation the IAA conducted in Beit Hanina prior to the installation of a drainage pipe by the Moriah Company. (Antiquities.org.il)
Mexican archaeologists have identified more than 400 animal species in some 60 offerings made to the gods at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, including molluscs, fish, birds, reptiles and mammals, the National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, said. The scientists have recovered, “for example, fish from coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean, reptiles including crocodiles, snakes and turtles, as well as birds like toucans and quetzals, and large mammals from the tropics like the jaguar,” INAH biologist Norma Valentin Maldonado said Friday. (Latino Daily News)
Some 1,000 years ago, the Vikings set off on a voyage to Notre Dame Bay in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada, new evidence suggests. The journey would have taken the Vikings, also called the Norse, from L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the same island to a densely populated part of Newfoundland and may have led to the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the New World. (Live Science)
Researchers have been able to trace the impact of volcanic eruptions on the climate over a 1200 year period by assessing ancient Irish texts. The international team compared entries in these medieval annals with ice core data indicating volcanic eruptions. Of 38 volcanic events, 37 were associated with directly observed cold weather extremes recorded in the chronicles. The report is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. (BBC News)
An injury to the head, not an arrow wound, may have killed Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old mummy found in the Italian Alps, says a new paleoproteomic study into the brain of Europe’s oldest natural human mummy. The protein investigation appears to support a 2007 research into the mummy’s brain. The study pointed to a cerebral trauma as the cause of death. (Discovery News)
The shores of the Sea of Galilee, located in the North of Israel, are home to a number of significant archaeological sites. Now researchers from Tel Aviv University have found an ancient structure deep beneath the waves as well. Researchers stumbled upon a cone-shaped monument, approximately 230 feet in diameter, 39 feet high, and weighing an estimated 60,000 tons, while conducting a geophysical survey on the southern Sea of Galilee. (Science Daily)
Scientists have discovered that about one in thirteen people have flexible ape-like feet. A team studied the feet of 398 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science. The results show differences in foot bone structure similar to those seen in fossils of a member of the human lineage from two million years ago. (BBC News)
Archeologists excavating a former Nazi death camp in Poland believe they have found evidence of an escape tunnel created by a group of prisoners. The rudimentary tunnel was first located in May at the Sobibor death camp, near what is now the eastern border of Poland. Dug about five feet beneath the surface and wide enough for a human, the tunnel stretched 32 feet from a barracks to beneath one of the barbwire fences surrounding the camp, according to the Telegraph. (Huffington Post)
For the first time, a bone tumor has been found in a Neanderthal rib bone dated to about 120,000 years ago. The rib was recovered at a site near Krapina in present-day Croatia. The tumor, a form of cancer called fibrous dysplasia, predates previous evidence of such by more than 100,000 years. Prior to this, the earliest known bone cancers were detected in samples approximately 1,000-4,000 years old. Fibrous dysplasia in modern-day humans occurs more frequently than other bone tumors, but study author David Frayer of the University of Kansas says that the evidence for cancer almost never shows up in the human fossil record. This may be partly due to the fact that the fossil record accounts for a comparatively small sampling of human species or human ancestors. (Popular Archaeology)
An international research team has announced the discovery of the world’s oldest known fossil primate skeleton, an animal that lived about 55 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch in present-day China. Smaller than today’s smallest primate (the pygmy mouse lemur), Archicebus achilles, as they named it, was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China’s Hubei Province near the Yangtze River. (Popular Archaeology)
When Islamist rebels set fire to two libraries in Timbuktu earlier this year, many feared the city’s treasure trove of ancient manuscripts had been destroyed. But many of the texts had already been removed from the buildings and were at that very moment being smuggled out of the city, under the rebels’ noses. (BBC News)
Once used to hide a face, a wooden mask fragment recently discovered here and currently on public display hints at ancient cultural links between this part of western Japan and China, archaeologists said May 30. (The Asashi Shimbun)
The chemical secrets of a concrete Roman breakwater that has spent the last 2,000 years submerged in the Mediterranean Sea have been uncovered by an international team of researchers led by Paulo Monteiro of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. (Science Daily)
A team of researchers from France and the U.S. have uncovered evidence for the earliest winemaking industry in France, a country long well known for its preeminence in the production of fine wines. While investigating the ancient port site of Lattara in southern France, archaeologists uncovered imported ancient Etruscan amphorae and a limestone press platform. (Popular Archaeology)
It has long been theorized by human evolutionists that the human diet, and how it may have changed over hundreds of thousands of years, was a central element in the successful emergence of modern humanity from the biological and behavioral backdrop of the animal world. Now, the results of a series of four newly completed studies by a team of two dozen researchers from several institutions have shed more light on the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of these changes. (Popular Archaeology)
A fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough. The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. (The Guardian)
The ivory carvings and plaques found at the 8th century BCE Phoenician city of Arslan Tash — “Stone Lion” — may appear as flat monochrome objects when viewed in museums today, but once they shone with brilliant blue, red and several other colours as well as glittering with real gold paint. (Past Horizons)
The Aydın Archeology Museum starts a new project to exhibit ancient gladiator mosaics on screens. Ancient mosaics and excavated blocks from the Orthosia ancient city, which include many gladiator patterns and shapes, have been portrayed onscreen with animations and detailed visuals (Hurriyet Daily News)
We are not biologically identical to our Paleolithic predecessors, nor do we have access to the foods they ate. And deducing dietary guidelines from modern foraging societies is difficult because they vary so much by geography, season and opportunity (Scientific American)
Compelling stories dramatize and humanize major events and characters in the history of Ephesus, the ruins of which are a popular destination for tourists in present-day Turkey.Historium Press, 2023.Available from Amazon and other online booksellers.
WHO WERE THE AEGEANS? The exciting new podcast series exploring the mysteries of the ancient Aegeans, the Bronze Age people who inspired Homer's epic stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
