MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY—Polynesian peoples are renowned for their advanced sailing technology and for reaching the most remote islands on the planet centuries before the Europeans reached the Americas. Through swift eastward migrations that are now well covered by archaeological research, Polynesian societies settled virtually every island from Samoa and Tonga to Rapa Nui/Easter Island in the east, Hawai’i in the north, and Aotearoa/New Zealand in the south. But little is known about Polynesian migrations west of the 180th meridian.
In order to better understand the relationship between these Polynesian societies of the western Pacific, Melanesia and Micronesia – often referred to as “Polynesian Outliers” – a multidisciplinary team of researchers analysed the geochemical signature of stone artifacts collected in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and the Caroline Islands between 1978 and 2019. An international research team, led by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, was able to identify the geological origin of these artifacts after comparing their geochemical and isotopic compositions with reference datasets of natural rocks and archaeological quarries in the region.
The connection to the Polynesian homeland
Adzes are versatile cutting tools comparable to axes. Among the eight adzes or adze fragments the researchers analyzed, six were sourced to the same large fortified quarry complex of Tatagamatau on Tutuila Island (American Sāmoa), which is located more than 2,500 kilometers away in the Polynesian homeland. “Tatagamatau adzes were among the most disseminated items across West and East Polynesia, and the sourcing of Taumako and Emae adzes suggest bursts of long-distance mobility towards the Outliers similar to those that led to the settlement of East Polynesia”, says lead author Aymeric Hermann, researcher at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and associate researcher at the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Hermann points out that the transportation of such socially valued items – often passed down for generations among Polynesian chiefly families – suggests carefully planned voyages, rather than accidental landfalls.
The geochemical investigation of stone artifacts from the Polynesian Outliers also provides critical information on inter-island transfers between the Polynesians and their neighbors in the western Pacific, specifically between the Banks Islands and Central Vanuatu, and between the Bismarck and the Caroline Islands. The team highlights that such inter-island contacts are signals that Polynesian sailors might have played an important role in the reappraisal of long-distance mobility and in the distribution of specific material culture items and technologies such as shell adzes, back-strap loom, and obsidian points among the mosaic of Pacific Island societies in the western Pacific during the last millennium A.D. “A recent study describes an obsidian stemmed point as a chiefly heirloom found on Kapingamarangi Island with a geochemical signature matching an obsidian source on Lou Island in the Admiralties: this is an exciting find that echoes our identification of a basalt flake from mainland New Britain on that same atoll”, adds Hermann.
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Long-distance mobility in the past
In the Pacific region, geochemical sourcing has been particularly successful at locating sources of stone artifacts and tracing the transport of specific items across distant islands and archipelagos. Such material evidence of long-distance inter-island voyaging shows that Pacific Island societies were never completely isolated from one another. These patterns of interaction are central to our understanding of the deeply intertwined history of cultural systems in the Pacific.
In this study, atomic emission spectroscopy and mass spectrometry were used to measure concentration of oxides, trace elements and ratios of radiogenic isotopes in order to identify geological provenances with a high level of accuracy. Thanks to the collaboration of experts in archaeology, geochemistry and data science, a cutting-edge approach to geochemical sourcing was developed, which involves the use of computer-assisted comparisons with open-access databases.
*Artefact geochemistry demonstrates long-distance voyaging in the Polynesian Outliers, Science Advances, 21-Apr-2023. 10.1126/sciadv.adf4487
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS—The contents of six sealed ancient Egyptian animal coffins — which were imaged using a non-invasive technique — are described in a study published in Scientific Reports.
The mummification of animals was a widespread practice in ancient Egypt and previous research has suggested that some mummified animals were believed to be physical incarnations of deities, while others may have represented offerings to deities or have been used in ritual performances.
Daniel O’Flynn and colleagues imaged the contents of six sealed animal coffins using neutron tomography — a technique that creates images of objects based on the extent to which neutrons emitted by a source can pass through them — after previous attempts to study the coffins with x-rays were unsuccessful. All six of the coffins are made of copper compounds. The authors note that it is rare for such coffins to still be sealed. Three of the coffins, topped with lizard and eel figures as well as loops, have been dated to between 500 and 300 BCE and were discovered in the ancient city of Naukratis. A fourth coffin, topped by a lizard figure, has been dated to between 664 and 332 BCE and was discovered in the ancient city of Tell el-Yehudiyeh. The two other coffins, topped with part-eel, part-cobra figures with human heads, have been dated to between approximately 650 and 250 BCE and are of unknown origin.
The authors identified bones in three of the coffins, including an intact skull with dimensions similar to those of a group of wall lizards containing species that are endemic to North Africa, as well as evidence of broken-down bones in a further two coffins. They also identified textile fragments within three coffins that were possibly made from linen, which was commonly used in Ancient Egyptian mummification. They propose that linen may have been wrapped around the animals before they were placed in the coffins. The authors found lead within the three coffins without loops, which they suggest may have been used to aid weight distribution within two of them and to repair a hole found in the other. They speculate that lead may have been selected due to its status in ancient Egypt as a magical material, as previous research has proposed that lead was used in love charms and curses. The authors did not identify additional lead within the three coffins topped with loops. They suggest that the loops may have been used to suspend these lighter coffins from shrine or temple walls or from statues or boats used during religious processions, while the heavier lead-containing coffins without loops may have been used for different purposes.
The findings provide further insight into the manufacture and use of animal coffins in ancient Egypt.
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM—The Allard Pierson is launching an international study of twelve mummy portraits, two from its own collection and ten from partner museums in Europe, with the help of advanced analysis techniques. The aim of the study is to learn more about how and where the portraits were made. Initiated by the Allard Pierson, the study is being undertaken in collaboration with the NICAS (Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science+) and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The twelve mummy portraits will be displayed along with twenty other specimens in the exhibition Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits at the Allard Pierson, starting on 6 October 2023. This is the first exhibition of Ancient Egyptian mummy portraits in the Netherlands.
Mummy portraits (head and shoulders) are painted on wooden panels that are placed over the faces of mummified persons after the body has been treated and wrapped. They were made during Roman times in Egypt and date from the first to the fourth centuries AD. These are the earliest known painted works of realistic portraiture that we know of. Around 1,100 are in existence around the world, five of them at the Allard Pierson.
The main goal of the study is to find out more about how the portraits were made and what materials were used. For a long time, such portraits were mostly viewed from an art-historical and culture-historical perspective, but research into how they were made has gained importance in recent decades. That can tell us something about where the maker got the wood and pigments, about alterations to the portrait, but above all about the individual depicted, the deceased.
Because the researchers use various non-invasive analysis techniques, the mummy portraits do not need to be touched during the research and no sampling is necessary. This research starts in April in collaboration with the NICAS, whose partners include the Rijksmuseum, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The study includes analyses of paint layers, pigments and other materials both on and beneath the surface of the mummy portraits.
The exhibition draws on current knowledge of mummy portraiture and the provisional results of the above-mentioned material and technical research, which runs until June 2024. The Allard Pierson is working on this project with research partners in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, and relies on the expertise of around fifty international museum partners who together make up the APPEAR network (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis and Research project), which includes the Allard Pierson and which is coordinated by the J. Paul Getty Museum.
“The exhibition Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits is made possible by the Mondriaan Fund, Turing Foundation, the Zandee Fund and the NICAS.”
About the Allard Pierson
The Allard Pierson collects, manages, researches and puts on display precious and important cultural heritage from antiquity to today. We make this material available to everybody, in the service of science and society, for the purpose of education and inspiration. We do this as part of the University of Amsterdam, from the heart of the historical city.
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APM10998, portrait of a woman, 300-400 CE, tempera(?) on wood, height 33.6 cm, possibly from Er-Rubayat. Allard Pierson
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APM08133, portrait of a woman, 300-400 CE, tempera(?) on linen, width 14 cm, possibly Sakkara. Allard Pierson
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
AlUla, Saudi Arabia, 18 April 2023: Surrounded by awe-inspiring human and natural heritage, The Chedi Hegra will be the first hotel to welcome guests to a uniquely authentic luxury experience deep in the ancient Nabataean site in north-west Saudi Arabia. RCU has selected luxury hotel management company GHM to operate the hotel as The Chedi Hegra.
Situated within Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site and opening by Q4 2023, The Chedi Hegra will offer 35 bespoke guest rooms, each with its own distinct connection to the Hegra landscape, a breathtaking testimony of human expression within the natural environment.
RCU is building the hotel directly into several existing structures, including an old railway station and surrounding buildings, Hegra Fort, and others. Structural and exterior walls, some with historical mud-brick construction, are being preserved and integrated with modern architecture. The vast majority of the UNESCO World Heritage Site will remain untouched by construction and carefully preserved by RCU to maintain the integrity of Hegra’s incredible human and natural heritage.
RCU has also ensured all design and construction efforts align with the Sustainability Charter for AlUla, including a light-touch tourism approach, imaginative infrastructure, planting of native flora, and an all-electric mobility system. Where possible, the project will use local construction materials and work with local businesses and labor, and the hotel is expected to create at least 120 jobs once fully operational.
The property will feature three fine-dining restaurants, a café, and a full-service spa and pool, with many of the buildings connected by an overhead art canopy focused on wind movement and natural light.
The on-site restaurants will each offer unique experiences for hotel guests and others visiting Hegra. One of the restaurants inside the old railway station will feature an exhibition of carefully preserved artifacts, including a fully-restored train, while another will sit within the Hegra Fort, and a third will feature unobstructed views from a sunken water basin seating area.
John Northen, RCU Vice President of Hotels & Resorts, said: “Sitting at the nexus of AlUla’s living museum, The Chedi Hegra embodies the fulfillment of our Journey Through Time master plan with its deep respect for heritage, sustainable design features, and an authentic luxury experience that celebrates what makes AlUla a special destination for travelers seeking both comfort and adventure.”
Tommy Lai, Chief Executive Officer of General Hotel Management Pte Ltd (GHM) said “ GHM is thrilled to introduce this luxurious heritage boutique hotel that will offer authentic, unrivaled lifestyle experience deep within the ancient Nabataean site of Hegra. As the first hotel within Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, we are committed to preserve the site’s integrity while seamlessly integrating modern architecture and comforts. I am certain that guests will recognize and appreciate the value we place in minimizing our environmental impact, through the sustainable efforts of the hotel, in addition to our dedication in conserving the legacy of Hegra – a true GHM hallmark of creating inspired spaces.”
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The hotel Hegra Fort restaurant. Courtesy Royal Commission for AlUla.
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The Chedi Hegra Hotel reception building. Courtesy Royal Commission for AlUla.
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The Water Basin feature of the Chedi Hegra Hotel. Courtesy Royal Commission for AlUla.
The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) was established by royal decree in July 2017 to preserve and develop AlUla, a region of outstanding natural and cultural significance in north-west Saudi Arabia. RCU’s long-term plan outlines a responsible, sustainable, and sensitive approach to urban and economic development that preserves the area’s natural and historic heritage while establishing AlUla as a desirable location to live, work, and visit. This encompasses a broad range of initiatives across archaeology, tourism, culture, education, and the arts, reflecting a commitment to meeting the economic diversification, local community empowerment, and heritage preservation priorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program.
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Rising sea levels and coastal flooding contributed to the abandonment of Viking settlements in Greenland, according to a study. Vikings occupied Greenland from around 985 CE until they abandoned their settlements around the middle of the 15th century. However, the factors that drove the abandonment of Greenland are unclear. Marisa Borreggine and colleagues used published geomorphological and paleoclimate data to model ice sheet growth and sea-level rise in Greenland during the Viking occupation to explore the influence of coastal inundation on settlement abandonment. Viking occupation of Greenland coincided with the transition from the Medieval Warm Period, around 900–1250 CE, to the Little Ice Age, around 1250–1900 CE. During the Little Ice Age, the Greenland Ice Sheet advanced toward the ocean. Geophysical modeling suggested that crustal subsidence and the increasing gravitational attraction between the ocean and the growing ice sheet would have driven an estimated 3-meter rise in sea level near the ice margin and resulted in the shoreline retreating by hundreds of meters. Archaeological evidence suggested that many Viking sites in Greenland were near the shorelines of glacially carved fjords, rendering them particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise. According to the authors, local sea-level rise was a previously overlooked yet major contributor to the Viking abandonment of Greenland.
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Simulated seas level in Southern Greenland showing ice (blue to white gradient), Viking sites (green dots), and areas of flooding (blue). Konstantin Latychev
*“Sea-level rise in Southwest Greenland as a contributor to Viking abandonment,” by Marisa Borreggine et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 17-Apr-2023. 10.1073/pnas.2209615120
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
AlUla, Saudi Arabia, 17 April 2023—As part of its Journey Through Time master plan, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) will further expand the accommodation offering in AlUla with Dar Tantora by The House Hotel, an immersive and authentic hospitality experience in AlUla Old Town. Dar Tantora will also house a pool and spa as well as a restaurant and café.
RCU is developing the 30-room landmark property by restoring several historical mud-brick buildings using contemporary engineering methods and time-honored techniques. The development will showcase the Old Town village as a vibrant cultural hub. The rooms will be adorned with traditional décor, furniture and artistic accents, incorporating storytelling elements that capture the area’s intangible heritage. Local artisans received specialized training to participate in the restoration endeavors.
The project reflects RCU’s comprehensive efforts to revive AlUla Old Town with tourism as the engine of development and job creation. RCU is driven by an ongoing commitment to innovation and sustainability in its comprehensive regeneration efforts, including the Sustainability Charter that governs each project’s economic, social and environmental impacts. For delivering on this vision, AlUla Old Town was recognized by the United Nations World Tourism Organization as a “Best Tourism Village” in 2022.
.John Northen, Vice President- Head of Hotels and Resorts, Royal Commission for AlUla, said, “Dar Tantora by The House Hotel will allow guests to live the rich heritage of the AlUla Old Town historical village. Steeped in the past yet embracing progress, this hotel encapsulates RCU’s vision for a diverse range of accommodations as we continue to deliver on our plans for more than 5,000 keys by 2030.”
“We take immense pride in operating Dar Tantora by The House Hotel, a location that seamlessly weaves AlUla Old Town’s cultural legacy with the comfort of modern luxury. At Kerten Hospitality, our dedication to delivering exceptional guest experiences resonates with RCU’s objective of creating harmonious communities, and we eagerly look forward to playing a significant role in the region’s development.” Said Marloes Knippenberg, CEO, Kerten Hospitality.
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Above and below: Spaces of the Dar Tantora by The House Hotel. Courtesy Royal Commission for AlUla
The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) was established by royal decree in July 2017 to preserve and develop AlUla, a region of outstanding natural and cultural significance in north-west Saudi Arabia. RCU’s long-term plan outlines a responsible, sustainable, and sensitive approach to urban and economic development that preserves the area’s natural and historic heritage while establishing AlUla as a desirable location to live, work, and visit. This encompasses a broad range of initiatives across archaeology, tourism, culture, education, and the arts, reflecting a commitment to meeting the economic diversification, local community empowerment, and heritage preservation priorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme.
Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert, and the Upper Nile Valley.
This article is available to Premium members of Popular Archaeology.
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Freelance writer, researcher and photographer, Georges Fery (georgefery.com) addresses topics from history, culture, and beliefs to daily living of ancient and today’s indigenous societies of Mesoamerica and South America. His articles are published online at travelthruhistory.com, ancient-origins.net and popular-archaeology.com, and in the quarterly magazine Ancient American (ancientamerican.com). In the U.K. his articles are found in mexicolore.co.uk.
The author is a fellow of the Institute of Maya Studies instituteofmayastudies.org, Miami, FL and The Royal Geographical Society, London, U.K. (rgs.org). He is a member in good standing with the Maya Exploration Center, Austin, TX (mayaexploration.org) the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, MA (archaeological.org),NFAA-Non Fiction Authors Association (nonfictionauthrosassociation.com) and the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. (americanindian.si.edu).
The cluster of valleys on the banks of the Supe River in the north-central coastal region of Peru, known as the Norte Chico, stands out among other geographical areas for the number, size, and complexity of its very early monumental ancient human settlements. It is a witnesses to an extraordinary past. Its early urban centers include Banduria (4000-2000BC), Aspero (3700-2500BC), and Caral, also referred to as Caral-Supe (3500-2000BC). Caral far surpasses the other two in power and influence and has been called “the oldest city in the Americas, and one of the earliest cities in the world” (Mann, 2005). In fact, the rise of civilization in Peru preceded the Olmec civilization, believed to be the oldest in Mesoamerica, by at least 1500 years (Shady, 1994). However, unlike cultures in other parts of the world, the Peruvian urbanization took place in total isolation.
The Beginning
Hunting and gathering for subsistence, in what is now Peru’s Norte Chico, is documented as early as 9500-8000BC. Small groups started plant selection and gardening, and the remains of irrigation channels have been dated to that period. New concerns with the cosmos and religion led to the unification of nascent social groups around spiritual concepts. In turn, this collective perception brought social stratification, followed by an economic cooperation that swept the Andes and Northern Peru’s coastal communities (Shady, 1997). Agriculture expanded, and by 3200 BC, harvested cotton was an already important trade crop, used to make nets for fishing, and later net-bags (shicras) employed in construction. Domestication of camelids such as llamas also grew around this time.
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The Great Pyramid @peruinfo.com
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The Rise
So, let’s follow the field notes of renowned Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady Solis and others, to look at how ancient civilizations in this region rose and fell. The fertile Supe River and its affluents wind their way to the coast from the western piedmont of the Andes to the dry coastal plains. Its lush valley is host to twenty-one ancient settlements that share a common architecture and urban distribution dating from the Late Archaic period (3500BC). On the Pacific Coast, at the mouth of the Supe River, is the Late Archaic site of Aspero (3700-2500 BC). This coastal town seems to be the origin of human settlement in this part of the Norte Chico. As demographic pressure increased at Aspero together with social complexity, communities split into groups that moved up the Supe River valley, establishing villages upstream. Aspero’s location, however, gave the town a key role in the initial economic development of the region, providing access to the abundant schools of fish that rode the cold northbound Humboldt current, as well as control of the sea salt trade with growing inland communities.
Caral and other close communities were built fourteen miles up the coast in the 60-mile-long Supe River valley, on the arid plateau extending on both banks of a ravine and the fertile but narrow valley where crops were planted. The settlements on the plateau on each of the upper sides of the ravine were thus protected from seasonal floods. In the 3500-3200 BC time frame, Caral (165 acres) grew from a village to a city together with Era de Pando (200 acres) and Pueblo Nuevo (135 acres), while neighboring hamlets such as Cerro Colorado, Liman, or Cerro Blanco did not exceed two or three acres.
By 3000-2900 BC, Caral was the seat of regional power, with Curacas – or heads of lineages – in control of political, socio-economic, and religious affairs. The foremost Curaca was the principal of a network of districts that spread up from the Pacific coast to the foothills of the Andes, an organization that was based on trade and reciprocity (Shady, Dolorier, Casas, 2000). What kept the network together was religion, used as a means of cohesion and coercion, as well as a symbol of mutual cultural and spiritual identity (Shady, 2004). Today, Caral’s monumental pyramidal stepped structures associated with sunken circular plazas, emphasized its importance as a secular and religious power center. Its seven massive temple-pyramids dot the landscape together with remains of residential complexes large and small. Its antiquity as the oldest in the Americas has been confirmed by 29 radiocarbon dates (Shady, 1993, 2000).
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Caral site map. @mdpi.com
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Caral and its neighboring communities on both sides of the Supe River may have housed over 20,000 people. Shady stresses, in agreement with Feldman (1980) and Grieder et al. (1988), that “field research indicates that the Caral-Supe society was organized into socially stratified ranks with local authorities connected to a state government, sustained by a productive and diversified crop production and fishing economy.” Farmers cultivated fields irrigated by means of a simple system of canals guiding water from the Supe River and its affluents, as well as from numerous springs.
The socio-economic dynamics were driving internal and external exchanges that allowed for the development of complex technological and social organization. “Caral’s direct control and economic dominance included populations of the Supe, Pativilca and Fortaleza valleys. Its interaction and prestige extended across the entire north-central Peru region from the Andes foothills to the coast. Furthermore, Shady stresses that evidence shows that “Caral was the model of a socio-political organization that other societies achieved only in later times throughout Peru” (2002).
The impressive achievements of Caral’s inhabitants (called Caralinos by archaeologists), from architecture to religion is owed to their dynamism, creativity, and interactions with social groups in the upper reaches of the Andes. Caral’s history and culture was closely associated with its ceremonial calendar which was set in harmony with nature and the seasons. However, they were also influenced by two major natural disrupters that are historically associated with the demise of cultures in northern Peru. These disrupters were, and still are, inextricably linked to the ebb and flow of Norte Chico cultures. The first of the disrupters are the combined climate episodes triggered by El Niño and La Niña, which affect global weather patterns. In a few words, El Niño is associated with a band of nutrients-poor warm water and atmospheric convection that develops in the east-central equatorial Pacific and spreads to South America’s east coast. ENSO-El Niño Southern Oscillation refers to the cycle of warm and cold Sea Surface Temperature (SST) of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean, with high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific.
El Niño’s moisture-laden clouds produce intense rains, floods, and landslides, devastating cultures and could be, but is not always, followed a year or so later by La Niña, the El Niño colder counterpart. During La Niña episodes, strong winds blow warm water on the ocean’s surface away from South America across the Pacific Ocean. SST in the eastern Pacific is, at that time, below average. Cold water from the ocean then rises to the surface near South America’s coast. La Niña is associated with droughts that may last months over the South American continent. These complex occurrences vary in intensity and may recur in cycles of seven or fourteen years.
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Peru Tectonic Plates @Scott Nash-USGS/Wikimedia Commons
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The second set of disrupters are earthquakes triggered by the collision of the massive South American tectonic plate and the far heavier Nazca plate as it moves eastward from the Pacific and slides beneath the South American plate. The friction between the plates, in the subduction zone along the Peru-Chile trench, is the main cause of earthquakes and volcanic activity in the region. To mitigate the disruptive effects of earthquakes, Caralinos found an ingenious way to give their constructions a certain “flexibility” during seismic events. Their answer was the shicra, a net made of cotton mixed with vegetal fibers that was packed with loose rocks. Shicras that held over a thousand pounds of rocks were found in the foundations of structures. Smaller shicras were used to carry stone loads of fifteen to twenty pounds from quarries to building sites, where they were placed in retaining walls to allow structures to absorb a certain number of disturbances from quakes with little or no damage.
Together with the shicras, quinchas-lintels or beams made of the huarango, a hard wood of a mesquite tree species such as the “algarrobo blanco” (Prosopis alba), were used to shore up doors and passageways in buildings, along with massive stone pillars as central support. All structures, large and small, were built of shaped stone blocs set with mud.
Caral’s thirty-two monumental structures, and its residential complexes, large and small, underscore the ancient city’s importance. In the upper half of the city are seven large pyramidal structures. Two of them, the Great Pyramid, and the Pyramid of the Amphitheater, are associated with large sunken circular courts. Major structures encircle multifunction open spaces or plazas.There are two subgroups: the one to the west includes the Great Pyramid, the Central Pyramid, the Quarry Pyramid, and the Lesser Pyramid. The subgroup to the east includes the Pyramid of the Amphitheater, the Pyramid of the Gallery, and the Pyramid of the Huanca (a huanca is a tall upright monolith, usually an uncarved stone). The eight-foot-tall huanca is found three hundred feet away from the plaza and the two pyramids, at the end of a causeway.
Archaeologist Shady notes that at Caral “the structures in the nuclear space are grouped into two great halves: an upper half, nearest the water where the most impressive pyramidal structures are located, and a lower half with smaller public buildings, but for one large complex that also has a circular sunken court attached to it” (2002)
This spatial organization likely expresses the Andean binary division into hanan and hurin (upper and lower, respectively). Pyramidal structures vary in size and exhibit distinct elements, but all share a model for the façade, which are comparable in style and design. Shady remarks that “all buildings follow a similar model with superimposed terraces placed at intervals and contained by stone walls. Each façade has fixed stellar direction and an axis that internally divides the space. This axis is usually marked by a staircase traversing the center of the terraces from the base to the summit. The flight of stairs also divides the building into a central body with two left and right extensions, each with rooms and passageways. The central body of each structure consists of segments set apart by their sequential location at specific elevations” (2001).
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Circular Court Complex @georgefery.com
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An exhaustive description of this 5000–year-old city would require far more space than is available here. So, together with archaeologists Shady, Machacuay and Aramburu, we will focus on three major structures: the Great Pyramid (Sector.E), the Pyramid of the Galeria (Sector.I), and the Temple of the Amphitheater (Sector.L). The Great Pyramid is the largest and most extensive and important complex in the upper half (hanan) of the city. It measures 561 feet from east to west and 495 feet from north to south. Its south facing façade is 65-five feet in height while its north side, facing the valley, reaches to slightly less than 100 feet. Its main feature is an important circular sunken court and an imposing stepped pyramidal structure made of a central body and two side components.
An important feature in the structure is that of the Altar of the Sacred Fire, which is located at the top of the pyramid, in a small quarter with a ventilation shaft running below it. The diameter of the circular sunken court, attached to the north side of the pyramid, is 120-feet, and its sunken interior is 72-feet across. An entrance stairway leads up from the exterior and up the south side of the court, in line with the axial staircase of the pyramid. On the north-south axis, two other staircases descend to the court, each framed by two large upright monoliths. The internal wall of the court is made of stone blocks reset one-and-a-half feet to an elevation of five feet giving it a stepped appearance. The walls, stairs and floors of the plaza were plastered and painted. Given its size, location, and association with the circular court, this was probably the city’s main public building” (2000).
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Pyramid la Galeria and the Huanca @georgefery.com
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The Pyramid la Galeria owes its name to the monolith located about three hundred feet from the pyramid’s main stairway. This pyramid is of a quadrangular plan, located in the east subgroup, at the extreme southeast of the upper half of the city (hanan). The façade is oriented toward the urban space shared with the Pyramid of the Gallery (Sector.H). The eight-foot-high monolith or huanca, seems to have been the axis common to the two buildings. The Pyramid of the Huanca has the typical stepped profile, consisting of five superimposed terraces and four sides. It measures 177 feet on its east-west axis, 171 feet from north to south and reaches 42 feet in height. Its eighteen18-foot-wide central stairway leads at the summit to an atrium, assumed to be an observatory. Notable among the finds in the building, is a headdress made of grassy fiber.
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The Great Pyramid and the Supe Valley @cordilleraviajes.com
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The Complex of the Amphitheater and its monumental circular sunken court is dated to 2160 BC. It is an important structure in the lower part (hurin) of the city, the counterpart to the Great Pyramid (hanan), but is not as commanding as the latter. The walled complex is made of various components: a deck with a series of aligned cubicles; a large circular sunken plaza and a building with platforms that ascend sequentially. “On the east side of its perimeter is a circular altar and an elite dwelling. In the building were found several ceremonial hearths or Altars of the Sacred Fire, with their ventilation shafts built underneath.Buried in the circular sunken plaza of the Amphitheater were found 32 flutes finely carved from condor and pelican bones, as well as 37 bugles made of deer and llama bones, which point to the building’s ceremonial importance. They were “decorated with incised designs and painted with figures of local fauna and humans” (Shady, 1999b).
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The main Altar of the Sacred Fire was found in an isolated area within the wall encircling the Amphitheatre complex. The religious ceremonies that took place there, as for most ancient agrarian societies, revolved around the powers of the sun, the moon, water, earth, celestial bodies, and their respective deities. This religious structure stems from the Kotosh religious tradition of the Late Archaic (4200 BC) in the upper Andes, which influenced Caral religion through most of the millennium between 3000 and 2000 BC.
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Altar of the Sacred Fire @en.wikipedia.org
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The priests were believed to draw their spiritual power from predicting cyclical natural events, such as the cycles of the sun, the moon, and other heavenly bodies. For that reason, they were acknowledged as the anointed intercessors between people and the deities of nature. However, the priests lacked the scientific knowledge associated with their observations that would be acquired much later in time, so they merely acknowledged the repetition of those events that indeed appeared at predicated times. But what the priests could not predict were nature’s variables such as the intensities of the above-mentioned disrupters. At Caral as in most societies of the past, there was no separation between secular and creed for, as Shady notes, “religion was the nexus of cohesion and the ideology of the state acted as the instrument of domination of its government. Most of the activities carried out at Caral were, in some form or another, related to religious rituals and sacrifices” (1999a). The most important religious ceremonies may have taken place around the Altars of the Sacred Fire in the Great Pyramid, as well as in that of the Amphitheater.Less important ceremonies took place in other buildings. The shrine for the Sacred Fire is often made of a small circular platform with a fire pit in which small offerings were burned, such as those found at Kotosh.
The circular platform of the Sacred Fire was enclosed in a low quadrangular six-foot-high wall open space with access for only one person, most probably the high priest. A ventilation duct was built underneath the hearth that led the heat and smoke outside. In the shrine, the high priest called on natural forces and their deities to ascertain the timely arrival of natural events such as rains, winds, or other phenomena, and their consequences on crops. Planting and harvesting were daily concerns for most societies of the past associated, as they were, with the weather — rain, specifically. Delayed rains, or their diminished downpour, could translate into a bad or no crop at all, and the consequences: famine, the return of fear, and death. So the priests had to assure the city’s elite that the gods indeed helped in understanding nature’s hidden behavior.
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Amphitheater Sunken Court @qosqoexpeditions.com
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Two other prominent architectural features at Caral are the large sunken circular courts built at the foot of the monumental staircases of the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of the Amphitheater. They were used, as were the Maya rectilinear ball courts, for multi-function events at dedicated times. Religious ceremonies were likely prominent to celebrate major events such as spring and autumn equinoxes, the Austral solstices and the rising and setting of stars and planets mythologically associated with gods, deities, and seasonal celebrations, such as planting and harvesting. The discovery of finely carved flutes and bugles beneath the Pyramid of the Amphitheater’s sunken court, point to the importance of musical instruments used during ceremonies and pageants. Remains of drums have not been found, so far, for their material may not have survived the test of time. Drums or percussion instruments, however, are recorded far back in time as the oldest device used by most cultures. Secular games may have taken place in the arena-like courts to celebrate social and sport events, an answer to ingrained human needs to compete in a controlled environment.
Through history, the universal use of games for secular or ritual purposes, underscore a commitment to maintain peace and balance between communal factions. Essential to ritual games, and to a certain extent secular games as well, was the need to keep in check latent antagonism within the same polity, as well as between polities.
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Condor and Pelican Bone Flutes @noticiasdelaciencia.org
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In several buildings, archaeologists found human burials, mainly of children or young adults that are generally associated with specific rituals. As Shady points out, “the discovery of the body of a young man, deposited among stones that were used in an atrium in preparation for the construction of a new one, demonstrates this concept. The body was found above a layer of soil and stones, covered with other stones and the floor of the new atrium. It was nude and had no offerings except for the careful arrangement of the hair. Forensic analysis by Dr. Guido Lombardi indicates that it was a male of about twenty years of age, who was subjected to hard labor for most of his short life. He had received two forceful blows, one to the face and the other to the head (which was the cause of death); some of his fingers were placed in one of the niches of the temple” (2002). The remains of children were found underneath the floor of dwellings. This burial practice, as found in later cultures, was related to the belief that such offerings would contribute to the long life of the building.
Caral, Ceramic Figurines @enperublog.com
Also found in residences were Quipus, the knotted strings made of camelid fibers such as llama or alpaca wool. Quipus were used, from the Late Archaic or probably earlier, as recording and communication devices arranged on a base ten positional system. Those identified at Caral are among the oldest found in Peru. Furthermore, small low fired ceramic figurines – on average: five high by two inches wide – were found in secular and religious contexts. Their similarity with those of the San Pedro’s phase of the Valdivia culture of Ecuador (2700 BC), is striking. The small Caral figurines are low fired with red and gray colors applied. The arms of the figurines, like those at Valdivia, are usually short and bent toward the chest or placed under the chin. In the Americas, diffusion of ceramics took place over a long span of time and across extensive geographical areas through trade, and some found their replicas at Caral.
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The floor plans of residential houses vary according to their proximity to a pyramid complex, a direct reflection of the status of their residents. Their architecture is similar in both upper and lower Caral and, as for collective structures, are built of rocks set with mud. The largest household complex in Caral is found in Sector.A, in the upper half of the city (hanan). The quadrangular houses are built with a main entrance at the front and a door at the back, the later perhaps used for the kitchen or other services. Their sizes vary from 530 to 860 square feet, and they had interconnected rooms, also an indication of the status of a household. In several rooms small platforms and benches (beds?) were found. The walls and floors were covered with white, beige, or light-grey colored plasters, while those with red and yellow paints may indicate that they were the homes of the Caral elite” (Shady, 1997).
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The central point still argued today about the diffusion of Peruvian cultures is whether it initiates from the coast, with its bountiful marine resources, or from the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Coast. In the view of archeologists Jonathan Haas and Winifred Creamer, “a complex society arose in Peru, thanks to irrigation agriculture, the same way it did in the world’s five other “pristine” civilizations, Mesopotamia, ca. 3500 BC, Egypt, ca. 3000 BC, India, ca. 2600 BC, China, 1900 BC and Mexico, ca.1200 BC (2005). Historian Karl Wittfogel points out that “irrigation was the catalyst that transformed tribal societies into city-states; for it required forced labor, central planning, a managerial elite, and provided the excess food necessary to support workers and administrators.” (1957). At Caral, the state government was sustained by dynamic diversified crops and a fishing economy. “Its sphere of domination and control included the populations of the Supe, Pativilca and Fortaleza valleys.
However, its connections and prestige extended across the entire north-central Peruvian region” (Shady, 2005). Social groups shared water through five ecological zones. The rivers begin in the high Andean Altiplano and flow through the mountain’s piedmont and, ultimately, to the coastal plains and the Pacific Ocean, a topography that was at the core of Caral’s survival for over a thousand years.
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Residential Complex @incatrail.com
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Haas and Creamer raise a pertinent point about “how ancient South Americans made the leap from subsistence fishing to urban sophistication.” Their main argument: “If the exploitation of marine resources is the reason for cultural complexity, why don’t you get a string of these big, complex societies up and down the Pacific coast? You don’t.” Haas maintains that the Late Preceramic sites of Aspero and Banduria, “grew as complex as they did because they could trade with inland settlements that had been revolutionized by irrigation agriculture.”
It takes a complex society to undertake big public construction projects, and the consensus is that complexity sprang from mastering agriculture. Hunter-gatherers had neither the means nor the need to create social hierarchies. That process (which entailed the division of labor and the emergence of a managerial caste), got under way only after humans settled down to farm” (2005). However, Aspero at the mouth of the Supe River, may still reveal surprises since recent radiocarbon dating showed that the village, with its two large platforms and circular sunken courts, had flourished as early as 3033 BC.
The End Time
Caral and its neighboring communities in the Pativilca and Fortaleza valleys were abandoned between 1800 and 1600 BC. Why? We are not sure, but archaeological and geological data point to the relentless onslaught of disrupters and their cumulative effects, which priests could not foresee. Geological data uncovered that an earthquake estimated at 7.2 on the Richter scale took place in about 1820 BC and destroyed much of Caral and Aspero (Sandweiss et all., 2009). This major earthquake was most probably followed by successive tremors of various intensity over the following weeks and months and contributed to more unstable rock and mud slides into the valleys.
The damages may have been worsened by an El Niño event that came concurrently or followed closely the earthquake and its aftershocks. Remains of torrential rains and consecutive gravel and dirt slides from the surrounding hills found by geologists are testimonies to the destruction of agriculture, with the clogging rivers and wells in the valleys. The mouth of the Supe River was heavily choked by sediments that, together with storms, gale force winds and ocean current shifts over months, built up a sand belt along the coast that, to this day, is referred to as the “Middle World.”
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Banduria, the Middle World @georgefery.com
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This situation exacerbated an already unstable food supply, for the shift in ocean temperatures with La Niña pushed schools of fish farther and deeper offshore. Worsening an already catastrophic situation were climate shifts and sands blown inland from the coast to agricultural fields in the valleys, further destroying cultures and obstructing canals already damaged by rock and mud slides.
Furthermore, Caral’s neighbors on its north and south were likewise severely impacted by these disastrous events. Food shortage worsened to such an extent that, together with the loss of cotton, produce and fishing, the economy collapsed. The pleas and tears of Caral’s priests could not prevent nor help in such a tragic situation, and Caralinos had no alternative but to flee and seek refuge in less afflicted communities.
The powers of nature were thus harsh on Caral and, so it seems, were its gods and deities. Garcia-Acosta points out that disasters are “triggers and revealers that have been important catalysts of change for much of human history.” As people begin to rebuild their lives in the wake of calamity, “one of their pressing concerns is for closure, for people need to understand why things happened in order to seek ways to make sure it does not happen again” (2002). Under severe conditions, new religious ideas and new leaders often emerge that take cultures in new directions.
Ruth Shady Solis, 2001 – The Oldest City in the New World
Jennings, J., 2008 – Catastrophe, Revitalization and Religious Change on the Prehispanic North Coast of Peru
Ruth Shady and Carlos Leyva, 2003 – La Ciudad Sagrado de Caral-Supe
Roxana Hernandez Garcia, 2015 – Caral: 5000 Años de Identidad
Jesús Sánchez Jaén, 2008 – Caral, la Cultura de las Plazas Circulares
Ruth Shady Solis, J. Haas, and W. Creamer, 2001 – Dating Caral, a Preceramic in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru (Science, 292).
J. Haas and M. Piscitelli, 2004 – The Rise of Andean Pre-Inca Civilizations
Ruth Shady Solis, 2006 – La Civilización Caral: Sistema Social y Manejo del Territorio y sus Recursos; sus Transcendancia en el Proceso Cultural Andino
Eva Jobbova, Ch. Elmke & A. Bevan, 2018 – Ritual Responses to Drought: An Examination of Ritual Expressions
Arthur D. Faram, 2010 – A Geographic Study of the Ancient Caral, Peru
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
RM (Richard Marranca): I just viewed the documentary, Secrets of the Dead: Egypt’s Darkest Hour. It was so interesting and macabre – this mass grave of mummies and body parts strewn about from the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Can you describe that history and carnage?
SI (Salima Ikram): The end of the Old Kingdom was brought about by a variety of factors. The most significant was of course climate change, where a series of Low Niles and an increasing desertification caused famine, and therefore civil unrest. In addition to that, King Pepi II had an extraordinarily long reign, during which time a lot of power slipped out of his hand and into the provincial nobility. He also allowed the Royal women to marry provincial elites, which gave those people even greater power legitimacy. In order to make sure that the priesthood supported him, he allowed temples not to pay taxes to him and this series of exemption decrees also decreased royal power and general control. In general, what happened was that a lot of the provincial elites started to flex their muscles and challenge central authority, particularly upon the death of the King. Egypt fell into a group of warring city states, with the nobles having their own armies, and probably also bringing in mercenaries, both from the south and north East. It is these battles that are in part responsible for mass graves. Of course, what you saw on television is really also a result of secondary looters in modern times.
RM:What does the word mummy mean, and what is a mummy?
SI: The word mummy comes from the Arabic word mum or mumia, which basically means wax or a black bitumenous substance originating from the mummy mountain in Persia. A mummy is an artificially preserved body of a human or an animal.
RM:Can you mention the highlights in the process of mummification in ancient Egypt?
SI: Mummification changed a great deal over the 3000 years of Egyptian history in which it was practiced. Some of the key components were: learning to eviscerate and desiccate using natron; and also the judicious use of resins and oils, giving the body a more lifelike appearance.
RM:What are some of the greatest ancient writings and images of mummification?
SI: One of the reasons people think of mummification as mysterious is that the ancient Egyptians did not leave a recipe book or manual telling us how to carry out mummification. There are very few images showing mummies being made, and these all date from the later periods of Egyptian history and mainly show the wrapping of the body. Textual evidence is also limited to receipts from embalmers and a text mentioning the wrapping of an Apis bull. Thus, information comes from the mummies themselves and to a large extent, from classical writers such as Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.
RM:Can you tell us about the Egyptian tomb and its purpose? What are some types?
There are many different types of Egyptian tombs, varying depending on the date and whether they were for a king or for a commoner. However, tombs basically had the same function, regardless of who owned them. A tomb acts as a machine coma if you will – a coma that transports the deceased from this world to the next. A tomb also is a parallel cosmos in and of itself, of an eternal Egypt. The tomb is divided into two sections; one is the public area where people celebrate the cult of the deceased, and the other is underground where the body is buried. This is sealed up and after the funeral is not supposed to be accessible, unless you have a group tomb in which case more and more bodies will be placed there. The upper part of the tomb, which is what people visit even today, is where there are scenes of daily life as well as religious, which are the cosmos of eternity that the deceased will enjoy.
RM:Are there curses in the tombs?
SI: The idea of curses is actually a false one. Tutankhamen’s tomb had no curse inscribed in it. That was made up by journalists. There are some tombs though that do have curses and they basically say that if anyone comes in to violate the tomb, or is impure, then may they be strangled like a goose and may the gods sit in judgement of the violator. A few of them do have more colorful variations on this theme, saying may the snake, may the crocodile, may the lion destroy you.
RM:Can you tell us about the relationship between Egyptian religion and mummification? Also, what is the Book of the Dead?
SI: The Book of the Dead is more properly called the book of coming forth by day and consists of a series of spells that help the deceased go from this world to the next. It is a bit like a crib sheet. As the Egyptians believed that you lived forever they felt that the aspects of your soul needed to have a body to animate, which is why mummification was born, so that the soul could live in a proper body. Of course images, both 2 and 3 dimensional, were also available for the soul to animate. The soul had a variety of components: the ka — one’s doppleganger; the ba — a human-headed bird that was the part of your soul that could fly here — the closest we get to a ghost; and the akh, which is the divine spark that can go off and be eternally joined with the stars.
RM:My students love the Isis & Osiris story. Why is this so important, so foundational?
SI: The Story of Isis and Osiris is so compelling because it is a love story as well as a promise of eternal life and resurrection. It has all the components for a good tale of swashbuckling, good vs evil, drama, romance, with the good guys winning in the end. For the ancient Egyptians this established and explained the role of divine kingship as well as the idea of eternal life and with us key to both state religion as well as personal piety in terms of funerary beliefs. What did ancient authorities do when they realized it wasn’t safe to keep mummies in their tombs – that is, to bring them into more secure hiding spots? Seems cloak and dagger. Moving mummies was something that really seemed to happen most in the Third Intermediate, although it is quite possible that violated tombs were reconsecrated and bones gathered together and reburied in earlier periods as well. Of course, in times of political turmoil when raiders, whether Egyptian or from abroad, were terrorizing the countryside, burials had to be protected and this is why bodies were moved about and put into caches for safe keeping.
RM:Who were some of the colorful early figures early in the search for mummies?
SI: A lot of doctors had agents who would go out and collect mummies because in Europe mummies were ground up and eaten as medicine because of the mistaken belief that they were made using this bituminous substance. An enjoyable explorer who also worked with mummies was Belzoni, who collected several mummies and sent them off to Europe for collectors; one of his friends, Thomas Pettigrew — also known as Mummy Pettigrew — staged some of the earliest scientific unwrapping and studies of mummies.
RM:About when and with whom did Egyptology become scientific?
SI: One can say that the start of proper Egyptology is after 1822 with the decipherment of hieroglyphs and slowly the Egyptians could speak to us in their own voices and there was less speculation about how they lived and what they did. Of course, Egyptology is continuing to become increasingly scientific as more and more technologies become available to us. The majority of the early mummy and skeletal studies used basic tools to extract limited information from mummies.
The most simple and common method, sometimes the sole one used when in the field, is visual examination. Such examinations yield crucial information about the bandage patterns, amulets and other objects placed on the mummy, body and arm positions, cosmetics, tattooing, and hairstyles. Although the unwrappings and resulting autopsies are destructive, they still provide invaluable detailed and useful information. Several scientific autopsies were carried out on mummies during the 1970s, with multidisciplinary teams of researchers involved in the investigations (Cockburn et al. 1975; Hart et al. 1977; David 1979; Cockburn et al. 1980: 52–70; Millet et al. 1980; Reyman and Peck 1980; David and Tapp 1984; Goyon and Josset 1988). Diseases can also be tentatively identified with the naked eye, although such identifications are unreliable. For example, visual examination identified a possible case of poliomyelitis in the mummy of the Pharaoh Siptah (Smith 1912: 70–73). Polio is a viral infection of the central nervous system that manifests itself in the paralysis of one or more muscle groups: Siptah has one short and withered leg. On the other hand, the same symptoms can result from certain types of cerebral palsy. Smallpox has also been suspected in the mummy of the pharaoh Ramesses V, due to the pox markings visible on his face (Smith 1912: 90–92). Visual examination can be augmented by scientific analyses that can provide information about other aspects of mummification, such as identification of the materials used in mummification, or a study of mummified tissues. As the sciences evolved, so did mummy studies.
The first mummy to be submitted to a professional chemical analysis (in an effort to determine the materials used in its manufacture) was the ‘Leeds Mummy’ (George 1828); although the results of this examination raised more questions than answers, it was the first such scientific investigation carried out on a mummy, setting the foundation for further studies, particularly those performed by Alfred Lucas in the early twentieth century. Lucas collaborated extensively with Egyptologists and physical anthropologists on identifying the different materials used in mummification (Lucas 1910, 1931, 1932, 1962).
The first microscopic examination of ancient Egyptian tissue was performed by the Viennese laryngologist, Johan Czermak (1852). This sort of study increased dramatically in the twentieth century with the advent of ‘palaeopathology’—a term coined by Marc Armand Ruffer (1921), Professor of Bacteriology in Cairo, meaning the study of ancient diseases from the tissues. One of this field’s major aims is to trace the origins, development, and disappearance of specific diseases and to study the effects of diseases on society (Brothwell et al. 1967). Ruffer used microscopic examination on many samples from mummies and managed to identify diseases as well as organs that had dried beyond recognition (Ruffer 1921, 1911; Moodie 1931). Nowadays of course we have X-rays and very good CT scans that allow for much more nuanced imaging. Of course, it is always helpful to have the data from the earlier studies as it helps us to interpret things that might not be immediately clear or apparent on the CT scan. Imaging methods allow us to study mummies nondestructively, which is a great boon.
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The mummy of the ancient Egyptian noblewoman Tjuyu. Quibell, J. E.; Smith, Grafton Elliot (1908). Tomb of Yuaa and Thuiu. Le Caire Impremerie De L’Institut Francais D’Archeologie Orientale Plate LIX, E. Brugsch, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
RM:Beginning in ancient times, the theft and abuse of mummies has been rampant. Can you tell us about them being used for fuel and medicine, for amusement and parties?
SI: In addition to eating them for medicine (see above): Once the mummies got to Europe they provided people with further ghoulish entertainment: unwrappings. These became social events and were very much a part of Victorian parlour entertainment, with special invitations being sent out for them. Mummy unwrappings did not start in the nineteenth century; many other curious individuals had staged unwrapping shows in previous years. One of the earliest recorded unwrappings occurred in September 1698, when Benoit de Maillet (1656-1738), Louis XIV’s consul in Cairo, unwrapped a mummy before a group of French travelers. Unfortunately he, as with most of his successors in unwrapping, did not record anything concerning the mummy; they only mention some of the amulets found on it. Mummies were so abundant that despite the mania for collection and unwrapping, there still remained sufficient mummies in Egypt for what might be termed, ‘useful purposes’. A special paint, called Mummy Brown, was derived from fragments of mummified bodies and used in oil painting. One singularly pious artist was so upset to find that actual bodies of humans had been used to manufacture his paint, that he took all his tubes of Mummy Brown into the garden and gave them a decent burial.
In the nineteenth century, an American paper manufacturer from Maine, Augustus Stanwood, used linen mummy wrapping to make brown paper. This paper was sold to butchers and grocers who wrapped meat, butter, and the like in it—once people found out the source, this stopped being common practice. Cat mummies were shipped from Egypt to Europe for a twofold purpose: first, they helped provide a bit of ballast for the boats; second, they were used as fertilizer until public outcry put a stop to it. Mummies suffered many ignominies in Egypt. They were burnt as firewood since wood was scarce and mummies plentiful. Their arms and legs were used as torches when people wished to explore sepulchers or see their way at night. Mark Twain reports (one suspects with his tongue firmly in his cheek) that they were even reported as being used as fuel to fire locomotives.
RM:Can you tell us about the tomb-raiding Abd el-Rassul family’s amazing discovery and the plot to sell stuff?
SI: Perhaps the most spectacular of all mummy finds occurred in the early 1870s, although not revealed to the world until the beginning of the next decade. In 1871, according to one of the many versions of the story, Ahmed Abd el-Rassul of Qurna (d.1918/19) went in search of a lost goat near Deir el-Bahari and found that it had fallen into a tomb-shaft. Descending, he discovered some antiquities lying half-covered with sand at the bottom. As he scraped away the sand from his new-found treasures, he came upon the outline of an opening that had been hidden by the sand and rock debris in the shaft. The opening proved to be a sealed doorway. With growing excitement, he chipped a small hole through it and peered into the darkness where he saw coffins: dozens of them. He found the tomb of Pinudjem II (Dynasty 21; tomb DB320), which not only contained several members of the priest’s family, but also sheltered the coffins and mummies of over 30 individuals who had been placed there for their protection in antiquity.
For the next 10 years he, his brother Mohammed (d. 1926), and a few other members of his family steadily removed smaller objects from the cache and sold them, piece by piece, to antiquities dealers in Luxor, notably Mustapha Agha Ayat (d.1887), who traded extensively abroad — typical examples were papyri and canopic jars from Pinudjem’s family. This flood of antiquities, which were especially noticeable as some bore royal cartouches, came to the attention of Gaston Maspero (1846-1916), the Director General of the Antiquities Service. He ordered an investigation, and on 4 April 1881 the Abd el-Rassul brothers were arrested. Both pleaded their innocence and were released due to insufficient evidence. After their temporary incarceration, the brothers had a falling out over the apportioning of the profits from the illicit sales of antiquities. The quarrel became exceptionally heated, and the secret of the tomb’s existence became public. The upshot of all this was that Mohammed Abd el-Rassul, after obtaining some guarantees from officialdom, decided to make a full confession to the Governor of Qena Province. On 6 July 1881, he took the Antiquities officials, Emile Brugsch (1842-1930) and Ahmed Kamal (1851-1923), along with their colleagues and policemen to the tomb.
The tomb, reached by a 12 m shaft, extended for many meters into the mountainside. Its first corridor was stuffed full with coffins, shabti boxes, canopic jars, and metal libation vessels; at its end lay a leather tent belonging to Isetemkheb D, one of the original inhabitants of the tomb. The second corridor, at right angles to the first, contained many more coffins, with a large stack of these in a chamber to one side. Beyond this side chamber a long empty corridor led to the burial chamber of Pinudjem II and his family. In all, the tomb contained mummies, statues, jars, shrines, and other objects from the burials of 54 individuals, many royal, and all mainly dating from the New Kingdom. The bodies of Amenhotep I, Tuthmosis II, Seti I, Ramesses II, Merneptah, and Ramesses III, among others were recovered from this most dramatic and large royal cache.300 workmen were hired to remove the contents of the cache and the 40 mummies and their paraphernalia, loaded onto a steamboat for their passage to Cairo. As the boat passed the villages along the banks of the Nile the villagers would come out, lining the way of the steamboat, and wail, ululate, and fire guns in tribute to the dead monarchs. The atmosphere of these events is recaptured by the greatest of all Egyptology-inspired movies: Shadi Addelsalam’s “Night of the Counting of the Years,” made in 1966. The family finally went to work with the Antiquities Service but did not give up entirely on its nefarious ways—they possibly helped steal from the tomb of Amenhotep II, but were also part of Carter’s workers, with a young Abd el Rasul being the famous model for the Tutankhamun necklace. Now they run hotels and cafes on the west bank.
RM:Soon after X-rays were discovered, archaeologists began X-raying mummies. Could you tell us about the powerful tools in the study of mummies, such as X-rays and CT scanning? Also, in your book, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity (co-written with Aidan Dodson), you mention many superb and damaged mummies. Can you tell us about a few of these?
SI: Poor King Taa the 2nd has so many wounds on his head and his hands are all tensed and cramped suggesting that he died and was mummified in a way when they could not straighten out his fingers. He has wounds from battles that might have started to heal but again maybe he was healing but assassins came and devastated him. The mummy of Ramses III is really interesting because CT scans have been carried out and it seems that there is a cut on his neck and he might have been or, in fact, he probably was assassinated. This is very interesting because there is actually a court case recorded about an attempted assassination of that king. Of course Ramses II has lots of great stories associated with him because he’sthe only pharaoh to have a passport from the modern Egyptian state. He was greeted by the French president and afforded all the honors of a live ruler!
RM:In “From Thebes to Cairo, the Journey, Study, and Display of Egypt’s Royal Mummies, Past, Present, and Future,” you wrote that for a long time there have been “religious and political sensibilities.” Can you speak about this?
SI: It is an issue as to whether one should display dead bodies and how one should display them if one is going to do this. It is hard to say that there is one right or wrong answer. I think that if I were dead and on display in a museum after my death I would not mind particularly, though I would like to be shown in a slightly decent way with some covering. We cannot ask each ancient Egyptian about what he or she thought about this display business. I think that perhaps the way they have been displayed in the Royal Mummy Room with only the heads visible is acceptable. And I also think that maybe if one says a prayer that is also helpful, but that is a personal opinion. Depending on each person’s religious or personal beliefs the ideas of whether one should or should not display the dead will vary.
RM:You recommended “Thinking Makes it So, Reflections on the Displaying of Egyptian Mummies” by Jasmine Day. She believes that public education (and more) can “effectively cultivate in visitors a sense of respect for ancient Egyptians.” Are we getting there?
SI: To some extent, yes, but it will also depend on the general level of education and sensibility of the museum visitor.
RM:You also recommended “The Living Dead: Egyptian Mummies and the Ethics of Display” by Margaret M. Sweeney, who wrote that the Manchester Museum covered some mummies with white shrouds but that visitors mostly found it to be a bad idea. Can things get too politically correct?
SI: I would probably in an unpopular way say that things can become too politically correct.In your books (as well as essays you shared with me), there are state-of-the-art displays of mummies. I recall Meresamun, a temple singer, at the Oriental Institute. The exhibit includes objects from her life, CT scans, and forensic reconstructions of her face. Is the concept here to be as very informative, respectful and holistic? I think yes, because then you can see her in all of her glory as a mummy as well as a human being. And for me the most important thing is to think of the ancient Egyptians as human beings, because that is why I’m interested in them. I want to know as much as I can about them as individuals, which is why I perhaps prefer nonroyalty to royalty.
RM:You are a very active archaeologist in doing fieldwork, prolific writing and publication, and appearances on media. Egypt holds a lot of secrets. What else would you like to accomplish?
SI: I would like to excavate in a scientific way an undisturbed animal necropolis and be able to carry out all the analysis that would yield as much information as possible from it, and I would adore it if we had some text that went with it. Of course, I would also like to do something similar with a human cemetery. And if this is a wish list, I would love to dig up a few houses of the Old Kingdom.
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
Professor Frank J. Korn has retired from his teaching position on the Classical Studies faculty at Seton Hall University.He is a Fulbright Scholar at the American Academy in Rome and the author of nine books on various aspects of the Eternal City.He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who as “a notable classical educator and writer.”Recipient of the Princeton Prize for Distinguished Teaching, he resides with his wife Camille in Scotch Plains, N.J.The couple’s three sons –Frank, Ronald, and John and their families live nearby.His latest book–Below Rome, the Story of the Catacombs–which he co-authored with his wife, is available on Amazon or from the publisher, St. Johann Press, Haworth, N.J.
Beautify Rome!
That was one of the top priorities of Caesar Augustus soon after he came to power in 27 B.C. as the first emperor of the far-flung Empire. He was not corrupted by power. On the contrary, he was driven by a desire to improve the quality of life for his subjects and was able to show what can be achieved through magnanimity. From early on, he instituted many positive changes in the government. He greatly improved conditions for the plebeians. His principal cabinet members were two very able men, Marcus Agrippa and Gaius Maecenas, who gave him very wise counsel and valuable assistance.
Whenever these highly intelligent aides observed that the populace was getting restless and beginning to lodge grievances, they advised Augustus to distribute money and corn to the poor and provide grand festivals and spectacles to keep them amused and distracted. Augustus would follow their advice and in doing so made himself immensely popular.
He loved the city of his birth and boyhood and wanted to make his imperial capital the showpiece of the world. He longed to be able to boast – as he often later did–that he found Rome a city of brick and left her a city of marble. Or as he would put it in his native tongue, ”Memoriam relinquo quamlatericiam”.
He encouraged literature and art and was himself an author. His reign saw the Golden Age of Latin Literature, spearheaded by the poets Virgil, Varius, Horace, and Ovid. Then, too, there was the great historian Livy who wrote the history of Rome up to that point.
Augustus planned to adorn Rome with architecturally splendid new temples, theaters, libraries, baths, porticoes, monuments, arches, and other lavish public works. So that he would not drain the state treasury, he strongly encouraged many of his well-heeled friends and associates to do their civic duty by funding some of these ambitious projects. The biographer Suetonius tells us this:
“He often urged men of rank and wealth to gift the city with new monuments or to restore and embellish old ones, each according to his means. And many such works were built at that time by many prominent citizens; for example, the Temple of Hercules by Marcus Philippus, the Temple of Diana by Lucius Cornificius, the Hall of Liberty by Asinius Pollo,the Temple of Saturn byMunatius Plancus, a theater by Cornelius Balbus, and by Marcus Agrippa, in particular, many magnificent structures”.
Family Honors
Another top priority of Augustus was to honor members of his family by naming various edifices after them – a temple for his great uncle, a portico for the sister he adored, another for his wife, a library and a theater for his beloved, recently deceased nephew, a library and an arcade for two grandsons who passed away as young men of great promise, and so forth.
In truth, the beautification of Rome and the monumentalizing of family members was on Augustus’ agenda even before he assumed the title of emperor. In 31 B.C., he became the lone survivor of the Second Triumvirate with his naval victory over Mark Antony in the Battle of Actium. (Marcus Lepidus, the other triumvir, had been forced out years earlier.) Now as sole ruler, Augustus at once set about building a temple in honor of his maternal great uncle, Julius Caesar (the brother of the emperor’s mother’s mother), who had been deified by the Roman Senate soon after his death.
In 29 B.C.,Augustus presided over the dedication ceremonies for the relatively small yet still impressive shrine that rose over the site where the body of Caesar was cremated fifteen years earlier. The spot had previously been marked only with a tall, slender marble column bearing the honorary title: Pater Patriae (Father of His Country).
The temple had a pronaos with just four Ionic-style columns and was situated in the virtual center of the Forum, just in front of the Regia or palace of the Pontifex Maximus and to the left of the round Temple of Vesta. Officially called the Aedes Divi Julii (Aedes being a Latin synonym for Templum), the sacred edifice was enriched with artistic treasures including a painting by the Greek master Apelles of the goddess Venus, from whom Julius had always claimed descendancy.
Despite its modest size, the aedes was built on a lofty podium, or platform, which extended out and was often put to use as a stage for speakers to deliver panegyrics to Caesar on special days of the year, particularly the 15th (Ides) of March. In 11 B.C.,Augustus gave a eulogy for his beloved big sister Octavia (she was two years older) whose death left him deeply bereaved. In A.D. 14, Tiberius did the same for the funeral of Augustus. A coin minted in the early part of the next century showed Hadrian delivering an oration from here.
The Temple of the Divine Julius was the first such tribute paid to a mortal in Rome. It survived intact into the late Middle Ages but was eventually quarried away for its marble. Today there remains only parts of the brick substructure. As the poet Horace liked to say: “Sic transit gloria Mundi.”
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The Portico of Octavia
Down in Rome’s Jewish quarter, in the shadow of the square-domed, Babylonian styled synagogue, rises an impressive remnant of the Porticus Octaviae, among the most ambitious constructions of the Augustan Age and one of the finest public works of early Western Civilization. It stands as testimony to Augustus’ resolve to beautify his capital, foster civic pride, while honoring his kin at the same time.
What we behold today is part of the south propylaeum, or access gate, that has the aspect of a typical pagan temple, with its triangular pediment resting on an entablature supported by columns. As did its vanished twin on the north side of the portico, the propylaeum once led into a colonnaded rectangular enclave measuring one hundred and twenty by one hundred and thirty meters. Two parallel rows of roofed-over Corinthian columns – three hundred in all – formeda spectacular yet dignified open-air vestibule for two shrines, side by side, to Jupiter Stator and Juno Regina, the principal divinities of pagan Rome.
As part of his grand urban renewal program, in 23 B.C. Augustus had redesigned and enlarged an existing portico, erected on this site in 146 B.C. by Quintus Metellus, and renamed it for his dear sister who was still mourning the loss of her son Marcellus who died earlier that year.
With the Portico of Octavia, as with all his architectural projects, Augustus had deftly managed a felicitous marriage of Greek refinement to Roman splendor. While foremost a covered passage for worshippers attending temple rites, it soon began to serve also as a veritable cultural complex. Two large matching apses added to the section of the colonnade to the rear of the temples housed well-stocked public libraries– one for Latin volumes, the other for Greek. Augustus named these facilities for his late nephew Marcellus, greatly pleasing the young man’s grieving mother, who was one of the most admired Roman women for her many virtues: her noble character, dignity, kindness, generosity, devotion to family, and compassion for the poor.
The portico itself was also a museum of sorts, thanks to its vast collection of statuary, including thirty-four equestrian bronzes produced by the renowned sculptor Lysippus. Carted back to Rome from a monumental park in Macedonia, these masterpieces represented Alexander the Great with his cavalry at the Battle of Granico.Also gracing the structure was an outstanding carving of Cornelia, proud but saddened mother of the slain civil rights advocates, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. This we learn from Pliny the Elder in his magnum opus, Naturalis Historiae.
The same writer and researcher offers a charming anecdote on the two Greek architects hired by Augustus to design the entire complex. Their names were Saurus and Batrachus, which meant in their language respectively, lizard and frog. When their request for permission to engrave their names on the project was denied, they found another way to leave their imprint for posterity. On the bases of some of the temple columns they carved, in relief, a lizard and a frog.
Pliny also relates another somewhat curious development. When the temples were completed and ready to receive their statues, the deliverymen by mistake set up the colossus and other symbols of Jupiter in the cella of Juno’s sanctuary and vice-versa. When the priests of both cults discovered the error, they were shocked and distraught. They submitted the problem to the College of Augurs who, after much deliberation, decided it was the will of the gods. Thus things were left as they were.
After its dedication, the Portico of Octavia soon became one of the city’s favorite gathering places and pleasure grounds. People came in streams each day to enjoy the architectural ambience, the objets d’art, and the relief from the relentless turmoil and din of the surrounding streets. It was always an eclectic collection of visitors: groups of out-of-towners being shown about by free-lance guides, clusters of friends just hanging out, teachers with their little charges in tow, businessmen negotiating peripatetically, lovers promenading hand-in-hand amid a romantic forest of tall sturdy marble pillars, all of them shielded from a torrid sun or a soaking rain, all of them well-behaved and soft-spoken out of respect for the sacred character of the place.
With the decline and fall of Rome, the portico and its temples, like most other public sites, suffered desecration and dismantlement stone by stone. Before long, homely dwellings encroached upon the gloomy ruins. Sometime in the Middle Ages, the one surviving gateway was partially shored up with a red-brick arch, relieving two tottering columns from duty.
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The church of S. Angelo in Pescheria, the Holy Angel in the Fish Market, is built up against the back of the columns, which were restored rather badly after a fire in AD 283 using bits of other columns. Anthony Majanlahti, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic, Wikimedia Commons
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Early in the sixth century, Pope Boniface II built a church to St. Michael the Archangel right behind the old gateway, thus rendering it a unique pagan ceremonial entrance to a Chrisitian house of worship.
At yet some later time, this church came to be known as Sant’ Angelo in Pescheria because of the fish market that thrived here just outside the temple precincts, from pre-imperial times to the mid nineteenth century. Still embedded in the outer wall of the brick arch is an age-old marble slab that reveals how the Weights and Measures commissioners from city hall cut themselves in on a piece of the market’s action:
CAPITA PISCIUM HOC MARMORIO SCHEMATE LONGITUDINE MAIORUM USQUE AD PRIMAS PINNAS INCLUSIVE CONSERVATORIBUS DANTO.
“Let there be given to the wardens the heads, down to the fore-fins, of all fish that are longer than this marblemeasure.”
A rather cozy deal for the officials, inasmuch as the Romans of the time considered this portion of the fish the most desirable, and especially good for making their ever popular fish soups. It is interesting to note that even in our current era the numerous hosterie of the district all boast of their excellent zuppa di pesce, especially the colorful eatery called Da Gigetto al Portico d’Ottavia.
Porticoes were known as far back as the second century B.C. They were often located adjacent to outdoor theaters, providing shelter for the spectators in the event of a sudden storm. Pompey had one next to his theater.
They were also popular rendezvous spots, particularly in the evening for the traditional stroll. No one wanted to pass up this daily opportunity to see and be seen. (Just like today’s Romans.) What the piazza is to the current populace, the porticus was to the ancients. The idea was copied often. At the peak of the imperial era there were as many as twenty five porticoes in Rome.
By 15 B.C. Augustus was again feeling the itch to name a public project for a relative, this time for his wife Livia. The Carinae quarter of old Rome, on the Esquiline Hill, was a fashionable neighborhood with beautiful estates. One wealthy citizen, Vedius Pollio, had a magnificent mansion there on a sprawling piece of property, all of which he left in his will to his long-time friend, the Emperor Augustus. At the death of the benefactor in 15 B.C, Augustus razed the lavish dwelling to clear the way for the Porticus Liviae.
Construction took nearly eight years on this awesome enclave. Augustus proudly presided and orated at dedication ceremonies in January of 7 B.C. While not a trace of it remains today, we know a few things about this pleasure ground thanks to mention of it in the writings of Livy, Suetonius, Ovid and Pliny the Elder and his nephew Pliny the Younger.
Ovid, whose risque literary efforts would ultimately draw the disapproval of the somewhat puritanical emperor who drove the poet into exile, cites the monument in his Ars Armatoria:
“Do not fail to visit that lovely portico which, ornamented with ancient paintings, is called the Portico of Livia”.
In another of his works, Fasti, Ovid waxes poetic once again:
“Where Livia’s Colonnade now stands there once stood a huge palace, occupying an area larger than many towns. Caesar Augustus decided to level the vast structure and destroy so much wealth to which he himself was heir, to provide the space for a community gathering place that would pay honor to his wife.”
Like most porticoes, that of Livia was rectangular, some 120 meters long and nearly 100 wide. Among other things, such as art works, it also featured lovely gardens and areas for strolling.In the midst of the gardens was a beautiful ara, or altar honoring the goddess Concordia, who, as her name indicates, was the goddess of Harmony and to whom Livia had a special devotion. Pliny the Elder writes of a beautiful colorful vine that draped over the walkways (perhaps Wisteria).
The year 11 B.C. saw Augustus’ next public-family project, the Theatrum Marcelli, a state of the art theater honoring the late son of Octavia. Marcellus, born in 42 B.C., was a bright, precocious, and handsome lad who already held public office, aedile, i.e. commissioner of public works and festivals, while still in his teens. He was the apple of his uncle’s eye. In fact Augustus, whose only offspring was his daughter Julia, adopted Marcellus as his son and was grooming him as his successor to ensure that someone of his own bloodline would ascend to the throne. Tragically, Marcellus died at the age of nineteen from a prolonged fever. The emperor was grief stricken, Octavia inconsolable. They both had high hopes for the gifted young man.
Marcellus was commemorated by Virgil in the Aeneid (Book 6, verses 860-886). One evening some years later, at a palace dinner party, the poet sang the pertinent lines. Octavia fainted, overcome with emotion. Augustus wept.
The Theater of Marcellus was completed just in time for Octavia to witness the solemn dedication. A few months later she too was gone.
During the Republic, the prudish censors had blocked construction of permanent theaters since they considered most plays to be a threat to public morality. Only wooden theaters that could be easily dismantled after a program of performances ran its course were allowed. At the end of the Republic, Pompey built the first stone theater. Ten years later, the Theater of Balbus went up a few blocks away. Julius Caesar began construction of a permanent theater which was left unfinished with his murder in 44 B.C. About three decades later Augustus decided to complete work on it in a grandiose manner. He bought up numerous private property lots in the vicinity so that the theater could be greatly enlarged. The site was just a stone’s throw from the Portico of Octavia. When the project was finished, the emperor formally dedicated it to the memory of Marcellus. (The location had been chosen by Julius Caesar because of the nearness of the already ancient Temple of Apollo (431 B.C.), the god of music, poetry and art.)
Theatrum Marcelli could seat comfortably 20,000 spectators. On the ground floor was the throne of the emperor surrounded by a semi-circle of seats for the proud senators, while above them, up to the crowning colonnade, in ever lengthening tiers of seats sat first the white toga-clad patricians, then the knights (Rome’s sort of middle-class). The uppermost seating section was for the plebeians.
The exterior wall consisted of three stories of open arcades, each flanked with impressive pilasters: those on the ground level had Doric capitals, the second Ionic, the top level Corinthian. Enough of the theater survives to our time that we can observe and appreciate the Greek touch. This structure served as the inspiration for the architect Gaudentius, who designed the Colosseum almost a century later.
Unlike the Athenians, however, who constructed their public buildings entirely of marble, the pragmatic Romans used a brick substructure and veneered it with marble, or to be more precise, with travertine, a limestone from the abundant quarries out near Tibur ( the modern Tivoli), twenty miles southeast of Rome.
Augustus, a man of consummate propriety and dignity, rarely allowed the old bawdy comedies. He preferred refined theatrical performances, pantomimes, poetry recitals, dance, and concerts. But despite his best efforts to elevate his countrymen’s comportment, many Romans were not particularly well-behaved at theater. They did not go to witness drama, tragedy and art but rather just as a pastime and for amusement, and humbug as was proven by the unrest, murmur, or downright impolite noise among the audience. Horace compared it to the rustling of wind among the trees of the forest, or the roar of the ocean’s waves.
When a favorite politician went to take his seat there would be spontaneous applause and cheers. (Such expression of popular favor, Cicero informs us, was purchased and paid for by ambitious office holders and seekers.} A not so favorite political figure would be greeted with boos and hisses and catcalls laced with obscenities. Sometimes brawls would break out in the audience. When the theater-goers were not happy with a presentation they would not hesitate to let the actors know. {The acting profession was not highly regarded or respected. It was considered to be one step above prostitution.}
The Theatrum Marcelli remained intact until A.D. 365 when despoliation started. Some of the travertine blocks on the ground level were removed for use in the restoration of the Pons Cestius, one of the two bridges that still link the Tiber Island to the city. With the fall of Rome came the fall of many of its architectural treasures. The third tier of Marcellus’ theater has disappeared in the course of nineteen centuries of metamorphoses in which the structure was put to use as a quarry, a fortress, a palace.
From the 12th to the 14th centuries the powerful Pierleoni family used it as a stronghold. The constant warfare in which they were engaged with their equally powerful neighbors caused great destruction. The interior was reduced to a mass of ruins forming a mound upon which the architect Peruzzi built the Palazzo Savelli, another powerhouse Roman clan that somehow came into possession of the property in the 15th century. Over the ruined cavea (seating sections) Peruzzi laid out plush gardens for the Savellis. Today the rooms of the old Palazzohave been partitioned into small apartments where the third tier used to be.They are inhabited by low-income families whose laundry can be seen drying at the windows. Nevertheless, even in ruins, the Theater of Marcellus remains an imposing sight and site.
Around the year 2 B.C., Augustus had his architect design a two-tiered arcade adjacent to the Basilica Aemilia in the Forum. In this elegant structure there were numerous tabernae, i.e. small shops, vending an assortment of goods. This work he named for his grandsons, Gaius and Lucius, who had recently come of age and were given the title of Consul. (By this time the emperor had reduced the consulship to an honorary office.)Each young man was also named Princeps Juventutis (Prince of the Youth).
Augustus was so impressed with the intelligence, character, and political savvy of each grandson that he adopted them with the aim that as his sons they would inherit a co-emperorship upon his passing. Sadly, though, they, like Marcellus, would die at a young age, in their early twenties, Gaius in A.D. 2 and Lucius two years later.
There is some confusion on exactly what was named for them – just the arcade, or that plus the basilica as well. Suetonius makes mention of porticum basilicamque Gai et Luci. At any rate all that is left of the arcade is this Latin inscription on massive travertine blocks:
I CAESAR AUGUSTI F DIVI N PRINCIPI IUVENTUTIS COS DESIG CUM ESSET ANN NAT XIIII AUG
SENATUS
To Lucius Caesar, son of Augustus, grandson of the Divine, Prince of the Youth, Consul-Designate when he was fourteen years old.
The Senate
Just two or three years after their untimely deaths, Augustus, still grieving, ordered the building of a modest sized Roman-style temple in far-off Gaul, in a town called, at the time, Nemausus (the modern Nimes in southern France).
This stately edifice he also dedicated to Gaius and Lucius. The attractive temple survives, virtually totally intact, to our time. It rests on a podium about ten feet high and boasts a graceful pediment and entablature and a facade of six Corinthian columns. While the dedicatory inscription is gone, a French scholar in 1758, by studying the pockmarks in the frieze and architrave that held the bronze lettering in place, was able to deduce the following:
To Gaius, son of Augustus, Consul To Lucius, son of Augustus, Consul designate, Princes of Youth.
(Note: The French of today for some strange reason call this memorial temple, Maison Carree which means “Square House” – strange, because it is neither square nor a house.)
Curiously, or perhaps not so curiously, Augustus never named anything for his only offspring, daughter Julia, who was the talk of the town. He was disgusted, nay appalled, by her reckless way of life and her promiscuity. This exception aside, however, it was still clear that with the long-reigning emperor (27 B.C – A.D. 14), family came first.
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—A punctured bone fragment found at an Upper Paleolithic site in Gavà, Spain could have been used as a hide-piercing tool to make clothing and other leather works around 39,600 years ago, anthropologists say. Luc Doyon and colleagues suggest that the leather punch board, likely used by Aurignacians, precedes the arrival of eyed bone needles in Europe by around 15,000 years. Punctured bone artifacts discovered from the European early Upper Paleolithic period are thought to have been produced by Aurignacian hunter-gatherers, who used an array of tools to make jewelry, artwork, and other instruments. Puncture marks have typically been interpreted as decorations or notation systems, but few studies have explored other possible functions. Now, Doyon et al. have performed a series of experiments to demonstrate that the 39,600-year-old punctured bone fragment, found at Terrasses de la Riera dels Canyars in Gavà, Spain, was likely used as a leather punch board. To reproduce punctures observed on the 10-centimeter-long artifact, trained experimenters used various tools to apply pressure to Bos taurus short ribs under leather hides. This helped researchers to identify that burins were likely used as stitching chisels to prick the hides and, in so doing, puncture the bone underneath. After further analysis of the artifact’s punctures – some aligned and some randomly clustered – experimenters reproduced aligned, evenly-spaced punctures on the short ribs. After comparing these reproductions with the artifact, the researchers deduced that groups of punctures must have been made over different sessions, with some purposely aligned and equidistant to produce holes for stitching leather pieces together. “The evidence from Canyars indicates that an effective pricking technique was well established in Southern Europe at the onset of the Upper Paleolithic,” the authors write. “We argue that this innovation documents a previously unrecorded tipping point in cultural adaptation favoring modern-human niche expansion.”
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A 39,600-year-old leather punch board from Canyars, Gavà, Spain. Francesco d’Errico and Luc Doyon
PLOS—Archaeological sites along the Libyan shoreline are at risk of being damaged or lost due to increasing coastal erosion, according to a study published April 12, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Kieran Westley and Julia Nikolaus of Ulster University, UK and colleagues.
The Cyrenaican coast of Eastern Libya, stretching from the Gulf of Sirte to the current Egypt-Libya border, has a long history of human occupation back to the Palaeolithic era, and it therefore hosts numerous important and often understudied archaeological sites. However, the coastline also experiences high rates of erosion which threatens to damage or even erase many of these important sites. Detailed assessments of coastal erosion and vulnerability of archaeological sites are available for other important coastlines, but not yet for this one.
This study combined historical and modern records of the Cyrenaican shoreline using aerial and satellite imagery and field observation to assess patterns of coastal erosion near important archaeological sites. Near the sites of Apollonia, Ptolemais, and Tocra, they identified extensive shoreline erosion and increasing rates of erosion in recent years, likely linked to human activities such as sand mining and urbanization. Their results show that current rates of coastal erosion are already a major problem for these sites and are likely to increase in the future with further human activities and rising sea levels due to climate change, putting these sites at risk of progressive damage and loss of valuable historical information.
The authors stress the need for detailed management and mitigation plans to protect these sites, as well as the need for increased awareness of the factors that exacerbate coastal erosion. They also urge further research to investigate other sites along this and other Mediterranean coastlines to assess the full extent to which our understanding of human history is threatened by coastal erosion.
The authors add: “The impact of erosion here is considerable and could get worse in the future. Our research highlights the critical need to support our Libyan colleagues in mitigating the damage to these endangered and irreplaceable heritage sites.”
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Recent drone image (2022) showing damage to archaeological structures at the ancient harbor of Apollonia (Eastern Libya) caused by coastal erosion. Saad Buyadem, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Present-day erosion impacts at Apollonia. A) Erosion of the Roman road (decumanus) in front of the Byzantine installations. B) eroding edge in front of the Byzantine Installations and Roman bath. C) eroding edge in front of the insula. Also indicated is the stretch of backshore where undocumented buildings and mosaics are eroding out. D) Example of a mosaic floor exposed by backshore erosion (photos A and D: 2019, S. Buyadem; photos B and C: 2021, F. El-Gumati). Westley et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
*Westley K, Nikolaus J, Emrage A, Flemming N, Cooper A (2023) The impact of coastal erosion on the archaeology of the Cyrenaican coast of Eastern Libya. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0283703. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283703
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF GEOANTHROPOLOGY—The Tibetan Plateau, known as the “third pole”, or “roof of the world”, is one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth. While positive natural selection at several genomic loci enabled early Tibetans to better adapt to high elevations, obtaining sufficient food from the resource-poor highlands would have remained a challenge.
Now, a new study in the journal Science Advances reveals that dairy was a key component of early human diets on the Tibetan Plateau. The study reports ancient proteins from the dental calculus of 40 human individuals from 15 sites across the interior plateau.
“We tried to include all the excavated individuals with sufficient calculus preservation from the study region,” states Li Tang, lead author of the study. “Our protein evidence shows that dairying was introduced onto the hinterland plateau by at least 3500 years ago,” states Prof. Hongliang Lu, corresponding author of this study.
Ancient protein evidence indicates that dairy products were consumed by diverse populations, including females and males, adults and children, as well as individuals from both elite and non-elite burial contexts. Additionally, prehistoric Tibetan highlanders made use of the dairy products of goats, sheep, and possibly cattle and yak. Early pastoralists in western Tibet seem to have had a preference for goat milk.
“The adoption of dairy pastoralism helped to revolutionize people’s ability to occupy much of the plateau, particularly the vast areas too extreme for crop cultivation,” says Prof. Nicole Boivin, senior author of the study.
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Tracing dairying in the deep past has long been a challenge for researchers. Traditionally, archaeologists analyzed the remains of animals and the interiors of food containers for evidence of dairying, however the ability of these sources to provide direct evidence of milk consumption is often limited.
“Palaeoproteomics is a new and powerful tool that allowed us to investigate Tibetan diets in unprecedented detail,” says coauthor Dr. Shevan Wilkin. “The analysis of proteins in ancient human dental calculus not only offers direct evidence of dietary intake, but also allows us to identify which species the milk came from.”
“We were excited to observe an incredibly clear pattern,” says Li Tang. “All our milk peptides came from ancient individuals in the western and northern steppes, where growing crops is extremely difficult. However, we did not detect any milk proteins from the southern-central and south-eastern valleys, where more farmable land is available.”
Surprisingly, all the individuals with evidence for milk consumption were recovered from sites higher than 3700 meters above sea level (masl); almost half were above 4000 masl, with the highest at the extreme altitude of 4654 masl.
“It is clear that dairying was crucial in supporting early pastoralist occupation of the highlands,” notes Prof. Shargan Wangdue. Li Tang concludes: “Ruminant animals could convert the energy locked in alpine pastures into nutritional milk and meat, and this fueled the expansion of human populations into some of the world’s most extreme environments.”
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Dental calculus of the highest altitude individual investigated in the study (cal. 601-758 CE) Li Tang
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Tibetan pastoralist in a winter pasture churning yak milk to make butter and cheese. Li Tang
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Map of samples studies in this article. Michelle O’Reilly and Dovydas Jurkenas
*Palaeoproteomic evidence reveals dairying supported prehistoric occupation of the highland Tibetan Plateau, Science Advances, 12-Apr-2023. 10.1126/sciadv.adf0345
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA—An innovative method developed by an Italian team is emerging that will revolutionize the field of archaeology and radiocarbon dating and protect our cultural heritage. The researchers have used it with surprising results on archaeological bones, making the ‘invisible’ visible.
This important achievement-published in the journal Communications Chemistry of the Nature group-is the result of extensive research work coordinated by Professor Sahra Talamo, in which experts in the field of analytical chemistry from the University of Bologna and the University of Genoa collaborated.
The group has developed a new technique for analyzing archaeological bones that, for the first time, makes it possible to quantify and map at high resolution the presence of collagen, the invisible protein that is essential for making radiocarbon dates and thus obtaining new information on human evolution.
“Our results will offer significant advances for the study of human evolution,” says Talamo coauthor of the study and director of the Radiocarbon dating lab BRAVHO at the University of Bologna. “as we will be able to minimise the destruction of valuable bone material, which is under the protection and enhancement of European cultural heritage and thus allow us to contextualise the valuable object by providing an accurate calendar age.”
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Many of the rarest prehistoric bones found by archaeologists are enormously precious and are considered to be part of our cultural and historical patrimony. Bones can provide a great deal of information about ancient populations’ lives: what they ate, their reproductive habits, their diseases and the migrations they undertook. However, bones cannot give us all the information we so covet. Their potential to convey information is limited by how much collagen is preserved in them.
In order to combine the need to preserve the integrity of the artifacts as much as possible with the need to carry out radiocarbon analyses, the researchers therefore developed an innovative method that, thanks to a camera coupled with near-infrared, allows them to detect the average collagen content in the observed samples.
“We used imaging technology to quantify the presence of collagen in bone samples in a non-destructive way to select the most suitable samples (or sample regions) to be submitted to radiocarbon dating analysis,” says Cristina Malegori, first author of the article and researcher at Genoa University Department of Pharmacy. “Near-infrared hyperspectral imaging (HSI) was used along with a chemometric model to create chemical images of the distribution of collagen in ancient bones. This model quantifies the collagen at every pixel and thus provides a chemical mapping of collagen content.”
It is extremely difficult, costly, and time-consuming to analyze all the bones present at one archaeological site for collagen preservation, most importantly, it would result in the destruction of valuable material. In fact, human fossils and/or bone artifacts are increasingly rarer and more precious over time. Because of the diagenetic alteration of collagen over time, large starting weights of Palaeolithic bones (≥ 500 mg bone material) are necessary to extract sufficient collagen for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating (minimum 1% yield). Moreover, many of the most precious archaeological bones are too small (< 200 mg of bone material) and/or too beautiful for sampling. Therefore, obtaining preliminary, non-destructive information about the distribution of collagen on a bone sample is crucial.
It is in this context that the technique described in this study really shines because it allows obtaining information both on the location and on the content of the collagen still present in a bone sample.
“The near-infrared hyperspectral imaging camera (NIR-HSI) used in the present study is a line-scan (push-broom) system that acquires chemical images in which, for every pixel, a full spectrum in the 1,000–2,500 nm spectral range (near infrared) is recorded,” says Giorgia Sciutto, co-author of the article and professor of environmental and cultural heritage chemistry at the University of Bologna. “NIR-HSI analysis is completely non-destructive. The time required for the analysis of a single bone sample is of few minutes and, therefore, the system can examine many samples in a single day to find those suitable for analysis, saving time and money and the unnecessary waste of valuable material, greatly reducing time, costs and destruction of valuable samples.”
This technique is expected to support the selection of samples to be submitted to radiocarbon analysis at many sites where previous attempts have not been possible because of poor preservation.
“This new technique allows not only selecting the best specimens but also choosing the sampling point in the selected ones based on the amount of collagen predicted,” says Paolo Oliveri co-author of the paper and professor at the Genoa University Department of Pharmacy. “This method helps to drastically reduce the number of samples destroyed for 14C analysis, and within the bone, it helps to avoid the selection of areas that may present a quantity of collagen not sufficient for the dating. This increases the preservation of precious archaeological materials.”
“The potential of the method proposed in the present study lies in the type and amount of information that the predictive model provides, addressing two fundamental and complementary questions for the characterization of collagen in bones: how much and where,” says Cristina Malegori, first author of the article.
Thus, this experimental approach can provide quantitative information related to the average collagen content present in the whole sample submitted for investigation. The examination can be performed not only in small and localized areas (as in single-point analysis), but it can also consider the entire surface of the sample, thus producing a higher and much more significant amount of data. In addition, combining the HSI system with PLS regression allowed, for the first time, on samples of ancient bones, not only to determine the overall collagen content but also to localize it at a high spatial resolution (about 30 um), obtaining quantitative chemical maps.
“As far as radiocarbon is concerned, we could strategically sample bones of high patrimonial value. For example, knowing the precise amount of collagen concentrated in a precise area of the bone allows us to cut only this portion,” says Talamo. “Moreover when the prediction of collagen shows that the bone was poorly preserved, we can decide to perform a soft 14C pretreatment to minimize collagen loss during the extraction”.
Overall, this innovative and incisive combination of NIR-HSI spectroscopy prescreening and the radiocarbon method provides, for the first time, detailed information about the presence of collagen on archaeological bones, reducing laboratory costs by dating only materials suitable for 14C and increasing the number of archaeological bones that can be preserved, and, therefore, available for future research.
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Cristina Malegori and Sahra Talamo at the Radiocarbon dating lab BRAVHO at the University of Bologna. University of Bologna
*Near-infrared hyperspectral imaging to map collagen content in prehistoric bones for radiocarbon dating, Communications Chemistry, 11 April 2023.
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS—An analysis of strands of human hair from a burial site in Menorca, Spain, indicates that ancient human civilizations used hallucinogenic drugs derived from plants, reports a new paper published in Scientific Reports. These findings are the first direct evidence of ancient drug use in Europe, which may have been used as part of ritualistic ceremonies.
Previous evidence of prehistoric drug use in Europe has been based on indirect evidence such as the detection of opium alkaloids in Bronze Age containers, the finding of remains of drug plants in ritualistic contexts, and the appearance of drug plants in artistic depictions.
Elisa Guerra-Doce and colleagues examined strands of hair from the Es Càrritx cave in Menorca, which was first occupied around 3,600 years ago, and contained a chamber used as a funeral space until around 2,800 years ago. Previous research suggests that around 210 individuals were interred in this chamber. However, strands of hair from only certain individuals were dyed red, placed in wooden and horn containers decorated with concentric circles, and removed to a separate sealed chamber further back in the cave. These hair strands date to approximately 3,000 years ago.
The authors used Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography and High Resolution Mass Spectroscopy to test for the presence of the alkaloids atropine, scopolamine, and ephedrine. Atropine and scopolamine are naturally found in the nightshade plant family, and can induce delirium, hallucinations, and altered sensory perception. Ephedrine is a stimulant derived from certain species of shrubs and pines, which can increase excitement, alertness, and physical activity. The authors detected scopolamine, ephedrine and atropine in three replicated hair samples.
The authors suggest that the presence of these alkaloids may have been due to consumption of some nightshade plants, such as mandrake (Mandragora autumnalis), henbane (Hyoscyamus albus) or thorn apple (Datura stramonium), and joint pine (Ephedra fragilis). The authors suggest that these drug plants may have been used as part of ritual ceremonies performed by a shaman. The concentric circles on the wooden containers may have depicted eyes and could have been a metaphor for inner vision related to a drug-induced altered state of consciousness. Due to cultural changes around 2,800 years ago, the authors speculate that the wooden containers were sealed in the cave chamber in order to preserve these ancient traditions.
*Direct evidence of the use of multiple drugs in Bronze Age Menorca (Western Mediterranean) from human hair analysis, Scientific Reports, 6-Apr-2023. 10.1038/s41598-023-31064-2
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
Jerusalem, Israel – April 3, 2023 – In a new study published in Hebrew University’s Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology, Dr. Daniel Vainstub deciphered a partially preserved inscription that was found on the neck of a large jar dated back to the time of King Solomon.
The jar was originally discovered together with the remains of six other large jars during excavations carried out in 2012 in the Ophel area south of the Temple Mt., led by the late Dr. Eilat Mazar from the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From the original inscription, only seven letters survived. Over the course of the last decade, more than ten researchers suggested various readings without reaching a consensus, but they agreed the inscription is written in Canaanite script, from which the ancient Hebrew script that was used during the time of the First Temple, was developed. In the study, Dr. Daniel Vainstub determined the script is “Ancient South Arabian,” the script that was used in the south-west part of the Arabian Peninsula (the Yemen region of today), where the Kingdom of Sheba was the dominant kingdom at that time.
Dr. Vainstub explains, “Deciphering the inscription on this jar teaches us not only about the presence of a speaker of Sabaeanin Israel during the time of King Solomon, but also about the geopolitical relations system in our region at that time – especially in light of the place where the jar was discovered, an area known for also being the administrative center during the days of King Solomon. This is another testament to the extensive trade and cultural ties that existed between Israel under King Solomon and the Kingdom of Sheba.”
According to the new interpretation, the inscription on the jar reads, “[ ]shy l’dn 5,” means five “ šǝḥēlet,” referring to one of the four ingredients mentioned in the Bible (Exodus 30:34) required for the incense mixture. The “ šǝḥēlet ” was an essential ingredient in the incense that was burnt in the First and Second Temples and was called “tziporen” in Rabbinic literature. This indicates a clear connection between Jerusalem of the 10th century BCE (the days of the Kingdom of Solomon) and the Kingdom of Sheba. It appears that the pottery jar was produced around Jerusalem and the inscription on it was engraved before it was sent for firing by a speaker of Sabaean, who was involved in supplying the incense spices.
The Ophel site in the Archaeological Park at the foot of the southern wall, within the area of the Jerusalem Walls National Park, includes a trail that passes between 2,000-year-old mikvahs used by pilgrims to the Temple. This is also the area where an administrative center of the kingdom of King Solomon was located.
During the 10th century BCE, the Kingdom of Sheba thrived as a result of the cultivation and marketing of perfume and incense plants, with Ma’rib as its capital. They developed advanced irrigation methods for the fields growing the plants used to make perfumes and incense. Their language was a South Semitic one. King Solomon is described in the Bible as controlling the trade routes in the Negev, which Sabaeancamel caravans carrying perfumes and incense plants passed through on their way to Mediterranean ports for export.
The initial excavation led by Dr. Eilat Mazar was funded by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York, with assistance from Herbert W. Armstrong College in Oklahoma, USA, and the East Jerusalem Development Company.
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The 10th century BCE inscribed pithos jar fragment from the Ophel. Photo: Daniel Vainstub; Dr. Eilat Mazar, after Mazar 2015
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Trans-Arabian trade routes to the Mediterranean. Provided courtesy Shani Jaffe of FINN Partners
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About the Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel’s leading academic and research institution. Serving some 24,000 students from 80 countries, it produces a third of Israel’s civilian research and is ranked 12th worldwide in biotechnology patent filings and commercial development. In 2022 Hebrew University was ranked at number 77 in the 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Ranking, making it the leading Israeli university in the world. Faculty and alumni of the Hebrew University have won eight Nobel Prizes and a Fields Medal. For more information about the Hebrew University, please visit http://new.huji.ac.il/en.
CNRS—“Horses have been part of us since long before other cultures came to our lands, and we are a part of them,” states Chief Joe American Horse, a leader of the Oglala Lakota Oyate, traditional knowledge keeper, and co-author of the study. In 2018, at the instruction of her elder knowledge keepers and traditional leaders, Dr. Yvette Running Horse Collin contacted Prof Ludovic Orlando, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) scientist. She had completed her PhD, which focused on deconstructing the history of horses in the Americas. Up until that point, the field had been dominated by western academics, and Indigenous voices had been largely dismissed. She sought an opportunity to develop a research programme in which traditional Indigenous sciences could be brought forward and considered on equal footing with western science. For the Lakota, scientifically investigating the history of the Horse Nation in the Americas was a perfect starting point, as it would highlight the places of connection and disconnection between Western and Indigenous approaches. The elders were clear: working on the horse would provide a roadmap for learning how to combine the power of all scientific systems, traditional and western alike. And by doing so, eventually provide new solutions to the many challenges affecting people, communities and biodiversity around the globe. For now, as her ancestors before her, Dr. Running Horse Collin would follow the lead of the Horse Nation.
Part of the programme was to test a narrative that features in almost every single textbook on the history of the Americas: whether European historic records accurately captured the story of Indigenous people and horses across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. This narrative reflects the most popular chronicles of the Europeans who first established contact with Indigenous groups and contend a recent adoption of horses following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Archaeological science has emerged as a powerful tool to understand the past, and, if done collaboratively, a strong technique for countering biases built into historical narratives. Over the last decade, Prof. Orlando and his team of geneticists have extracted the ancient DNA molecules still preserved in archeological remains to rewrite the history of the domestic horse. They have sequenced the genomes of several hundred horses that lived on the planet thousands of years ago, up to even 700,000 years ago. This technology could, thus, be reasonably expected to reveal the genetic makeup of horses that lived in the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains post-European contact.
To tackle this question, Prof. William Taylor, Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado and a large team of partners including archaeologists from the University of New Mexico and University of Oklahoma set out to track down archaeological horse bones from across the American West together with his Lakota, Comanche, Pawnee and Pueblo collaborators. Using both new and established practices from the archaeological sciences, the team identified evidence that horses were raised, fed, cared for, and ridden by Indigenous Peoples. An early date from a horse specimen from Paa’ko Pueblo in New Mexico provides evidence of Indigenous control of horses at the turn of the 17th century, and possibly earlier. Direct radiocarbon dating of discoveries ranging from southern Idaho to southwestern Wyoming and northern Kansas showed that horses were present across much of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains by the early 17th century, and conclusively before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Clearly, the most common narrative for the origin of the American horse needed correction.
The genome evidence demonstrated that the horses surveyed in this study for many Plains Nations were primarily of Iberian ancestry, but not directly related with those horses that inhabited the Americas in the Late Pleistocene more than 12,000 years ago. Likewise, they were not the descendants of Viking horses, despite Vikings establishing settlements on the American continent by 1021. Archaeological data show that these domestic horses were no longer in exclusive Spanish control by at least the early 1600s, and were integrated into Indigenous life-ways. Importantly, this earlier dispersal validates many traditional perspectives on the origin of the horse from project partners like the Comanche and Pawnee, who recognize the link between archaeological findings and oral traditions. Comanche Tribal Historian and study coauthor Jimmy Arterberry states: “These findings support and concur with Comanche oral tradition. Archaeological traces of our horse culture are invaluable assets that reveal a chronology in North American history, and are important to the survival of Indigenous cultures. They are our heritage, and merit honor through protection. They are sacred to the Comanche.”
Further work involving new archaeological excavations at sites dating to or even predating the 16th century, and additional sequencing, will help shed new light on other chapters of the human-horse story in the Americas. Pawnee archaeologist and study coauthor Carlton Shield Chief Gover says: “The archaeological science presented in our research further illustrates the necessity for meaningful and genuine collaborative partnerships with Indigenous communities.”
The genome analyses did not just address the development of horsemanship within First Nations during the first stages of the American colonization. These analyses demonstrated that the once dominant ancestry found in the horse genome became increasingly diluted through time, gaining ancestry native from British bloodlines. Therefore, the changing landscape of colonial America was recorded in the horse genome: first mainly from Spanish sources, then primarily from British settlers.
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In the future, this team is committed to continue working on the history of the Horse Nation in the Americas to include the scientific methodologies inherent in Indigenous scientific systems, as well as a greater contribution regarding migratory patterns and the effects on the genome due to climate change. This study was critical in helping to bring Western and Indigenous scientists together so that authentic dialogue and exchange may begin.
The challenges that our modern world faces are immense. In these times of massive biodiversity crisis and global climate warming, the future of the planet is threatened. Indigenous Peoples have survived the chaos and destruction brought about by colonization, assimilation policies and genocide, and carry important knowledge and scientific approaches centered around sustainability. It is now, more than ever, time to repair history and create more inclusive conditions for co-designing strategies for a more sustainable future. Importantly, this study created a collaboration between western scientists and many Native Nations across the United States, from the Pueblo to the Pawnee, Wichita, Comanche, and Lakota. We expect to be joined by many more soon. “Our Horse Nation relatives have always brought us together and will continue to do so. Our horse societies are organized and ready. As this collaboration develops, we invite all Peoples of the Horse to join us. We call to you.” (Dr. Antonia Loretta Afraid of Bear-Cook, traditional knowledge keeper for the Oglala Lakota, a study co-author).
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Award (#1949305, #1949304, #1949305, and #1949283), Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (programmes HOPE and MethylRIDE), the CNRS and Université Paul Sabatier (International Research Program AnimalFarm), the French Government “Investissement d’Avenir” France Génomique (ANR-10-INBS-09), and the European Research Council (PEGASUS). All protocols for the transmission of sacred and traditional knowledge were followed, and research activities and results were endorsed by an Internal Review Board involving 10 Lakota Elder Knowledge Keepers, who now serve as the Board of Directors of Taku Škaŋ Škaŋ Wasakliyapi: Global Institute for Traditional Sciences (GIFTS).
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Horse and rider petroglyph at the Tolar site, located in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. This depiction was likely carved by ancestral Comanche or Shoshone people From Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies, AAAS, 30 March 2023. Pat Doak
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
DESERT RESEARCH INSTITUTE—Scientists often look to the past for clues about how Earth’s landscapes might shift under a changing climate, and for insight into the migrations of human communities through time. A new study* offers both by providing, for the first time, a reconstruction of prehistoric temperatures for some of the first known North American settlements.
The study, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, uses new techniques to examine the past climate of Alaska’s Tanana Valley. With a temperature record that reaches back 14,000 years, researchers now have a glimpse into the environment that supported humans living at some of the continent’s oldest archaeological sites, where mammoth bones are preserved alongside evidence of human occupation. Reconstructing the past environment can help scientists understand the importance of the region for human migration into the Americas.
“When you think about what was happening in the Last Glacial Maximum, all these regions on Earth were super cold, with massive ice sheets, but this area was never fully glaciated,” says Jennifer Kielhofer, Ph.D., a paleoclimatologist at DRI and lead author of the study. “We’re hypothesizing that if this area was comparatively warm, maybe that would have been an attractive reason to come there and settle.”
Kielhofer conducted the research during her doctoral studies at the University of Arizona, and was attracted to the Alaska location because of the wealth of research expertise being focused on the area. She also saw an opportunity to contribute to scientific understanding of a part of the world that is particularly sensitive to global climate change.
“We have to look to the past to try to better constrain how these areas have responded previously,” she said, “and how they might respond in the future under climate scenarios that we predict.”
Earlier research had relied on coarse temperature records by examining changes in vegetation and pollen. However, this information can only provide a general sense of whether a region was warming or cooling over time. To obtain a more precise history of temperatures, Kielhofer examined soil samples from the archeological sites. Using a technique known as brGDGT paleothermometry, she examined temperature records stored in bacteria to obtain a record of mean annual air temperature above freezing with a precision within about 2.8 degrees Celsius.
“Bacteria are everywhere,” she said. “That’s great because in areas where you might not have other means of recording or assessing past temperature, you have bacteria. They can preserve for millions of years, so it’s a great opportunity to look at pretty much anywhere on Earth.”
The results were surprising, she said, because many scientists had previously believed that the region experienced large swings in temperature, which may have contributed to the movement of early humans. But Kielhofer’s data showed that temperatures in the Tanana Valley remained fairly stable over time.
“The region wasn’t really responding to these global scale climate changes as we might expect,” she said. “Because temperatures are really stable through this record, we can’t necessarily use temperature as a way to explain changes in human occupation or adaptation through time, as scientists have previously tried to do.”
Kielhofer is now turning her attention to other historical records, like changes in aridity, that could help explain how conditions in this region influenced early human communities.
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Jennifer Kielhofer sampling for charcoal and biomarkers (GDGTs) at Keystone Dune in Alaska, one of the study sites as well as one of the older archaeological sites in the area (dating back ~13,000 years). Jennifer Kielhofer
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
*BrGDGT temperature reconstruction from interior Alaska: Assessing 14,000 years of deglacial to Holocene temperature variability and potential effects on early human settlement, Quaternary Science Reviews, 1-Mar-2023. 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.107979
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
POLITECNICO DI MILANO—Stonehenge is an astonishingly complex monument, which attracts attention mostly for its spectacular megalithic circle and “horseshoe”, built around 2600 BC.
Over the years, several theories have been put forward about Stonehenge’s meaning and function. Today, however, archaeologists have a rather clear picture of this monument as a “place for the ancestors”, located within a complex ancient landscape which included several other elements.
Archaeoastronomy has a key role in this interpretation since Stonehenge exhibits an astronomical alignment to the sun which, due to the flatness of the horizon, refers both to the summer solstice sunrise and to the winter solstice sunset. This accounts for a symbolic interest of the builders in the solar cycle, most probably related to the connections between the afterlife and winter solstice in Neolithic societies
This is, of course, very far from saying that the monument was used as a giant calendrical device, as instead has been proposed in a new theory published in the renewed Archaeology Journal Antiquity. According to this theory, the monument represents a calendar based on 365 days per year divided into 12 months of 30 days plus five epagomenal days, with the addition of a leap year every four. This calendar is identical to the Alexandrian one, introduced more than two millennia later, at the end of the first century BC as a combination of the Julian calendar and the Egyptian civil calendar.
To justify this “calendar in stone”, the number of the days is obtained by multiplying the 30 sarsen lintels (probably) present in the original project by 12 and adding to 360 the number of the standing trilithons of the Horseshoe, which is five. The addition of a leap year every four is related to the number of the “station stones”, which is, indeed, four. This machinery was allegedly kept in operation using the solstice alignment of the axis and was supposedly taken from Egypt, much refining, however, the Egyptian calendar, which was of 365 days (the leap year correction was not present until Roman times).
This is the admittedly fascinating theory that has been subjected to a severe stress test by two renewed experts of Archaeoastronomy, Juan Antonio Belmonte (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain) and Giulio Magli (Politecnico of Milan). In their paper*, which is going to be published on Antiquity as well, the authors show that the theory is based on a series of forced interpretations of the astronomical connections of the monument, as well as on debatable numerology and unsupported analogies.
First of all, astronomy. Although the solstice alignment is quite accurate, Magli and Belmonte show that the slow movement of the sun at the horizon in the days close to solstices makes it impossible to control the correct working of the alleged calendar, as the device (remember: composed by huge stones) should be able to distinguish positions as accurate as a few arc minutes, that is, less than 1/10 of one degree. So, while the existence of the axis does show interest in the solar cycle in a broad sense, it provides no proof whatsoever for inferring the number of days of the year conceived by the builders.
Second, is numerology. Attributing meanings to “numbers” in a monument is always a risky procedure. In this case, a “key number” of the alleged calendar, 12, is not recognizable anywhere, as well as any means of taking into account the additional epagomenal day every four years, while other “numbers” are simply ignored (for instance, the Stonehenge portal was made of two stones). Thus, the theory suffers also from the so-called “selection effect”, a procedure in which only the elements favorable to a desired interpretation are extracted from the material records.
Finally, cultural paragons. The first elaboration of the 365 plus 1-day calendar is documented in Egypt only two millennia later than Stonehenge (and entered into use further centuries later). Thus, even if the builders took the calendar from Egypt, they refined it on their own. In addition, they invented on their own also a building to control time, since nothing of this kind ever existed in ancient Egypt – probably the Egyptians reflected the drift of their 365-day
calendar through the seasons in their architecture but this is far different. Besides, a transfer and elaboration of notions with Egypt occurred around 2600 BC and has no archaeological basis.
All in all, the alleged “Neolithic” solar-precise Stonehenge calendar is shown to be a purely modern construct whose archaeoastronomical and calendrical bases are flawed.
As occurred many times in the past – for instance, for the claims (shown untenable by modern research) that Stonehenge was used to predict eclipses – the monument returns to its role of the silent witness of the sacred landscape of its builders, a role which – as Magli and Belmonte stress – does not take anything away from his extraordinary fascination and importance.
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he solstitial axis of Stonehenge viewed from the entrance. Juan Belmonte
*Archaeoastronomy and the alleged ‘Stonehenge calendar’, Antiquity, 23-Mar-2023. 10.15184/aqy.2023.33
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Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening as Dr. Hawass reveals the most closely guarded secrets of ancient Egypt and presents his groundbreaking new discoveries and latest research live on stage. As the man behind all major discoveries in Egypt over the last few decades and director of several ongoing archaeological projects, Dr. Hawass may yet surprise you with unexpected revelations that will make news across the world.
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.
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