Nymphaion in ancient city of Side undergoing restoration

Restoration and conversation is set to start again at the Monumental Fountain (Nymphaion) in the ancient city of Side in the southern Turkish province of Antalya.

The Nymphaion of Side [Credit: AA]

The Monumental Fountain dates back to the 2nd century AD and has undergone a series of restorations since 2004.

Antalya Surveying and Monuments Director Cemil Karabayram, who recently visited the ancient site, said only 20 percent of the restoration has so far been completed, but the work will be finished in the coming period.

Karabayram said a financial allocation for the project had been provided under the auspices of Culture and Tourism Minister Professor Numan Kurtulmuş, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Antalya Governor Münir Karalıoğlu, and a tender will be initiated in the coming days.

He said there are a number of large stone blocks in the area, which have each been documented with a separate number, adding that the blocks and the arch structure at the front of the site will be placed on the upper columns.

Karabayram said the restoration team strongly suspects that new blocks will be found under the layer of soil right behind the fountain.

“Excavations will unearth these new blocks. I hope that we will make the fountain complete by finishing the work. Tourists will be able to enter the area and visit the fountain. Almost 12 million Turkish Liras have been allocated for the entire Side region and its monumental structures,” he added.

The restoration team plans to restore the pool system in front of the fountain to its original state, while the asphalt in the gate of the castle, which is located at the entrance of Side, will be removed.

Karabayram said the excavations at the ancient site of Side were first initiated by Professor Arif Müfit Mansel, whose words and articles about Side are very important.

“Mansel said a copy of this fountain was constructed in Italy by Italians. Of course this was a matter of debate but we are carrying out work for it. We are talking with art historians about this issue, and whether the fountain here was a source of inspiration for the fountain in Rome,” he added.

Karabayram also said some columns of the fountain have been preserved throughout history.

“All of these columns are original and new materials will never be used in the restoration. But some extra blocks could be placed in order to provide balance,” he added.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News [September 22, 2017]

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Continued excavations of the Minoan Neopalatial complex at Sissi, Crete

A team of the Université Catholique de Louvain under the auspices of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi and the Belgian School at Athens, aided by experts and students from many Greek and foreign universities, continued the excavation of a monumental court-centered building on the Kephali-hill at Sissi (Lassithi, Crete) during the summer of 2017.

Aerial view of the court-centred complex at Sissi 
[Credit: © EBSA/N. Kress]

The entire complex largely dates to the Neopalatial period of the Minoan civilization, roughly the 16th c. BC, and was abandoned close in time to the Santorini eruption, ash of which was found within the building.

Started in 2015, we finally achieved the clearance of the plastered central court, which is seen to have a maximum size of 16.50 by 33 m.

Ritual Installations and paved corridor leading into court 
[Credit: © EBSA/J. Driessen]

Several ritual installations are found on and along this central court, which was directly accessible from the outside to the southwest via a finely paved corridor with ashlar walls.

The excavation further revealed large parts of the east and west wings of the complex; the latter also comprises a circular water-collecting basin with an associated subterranean cistern.

Fragments of ritual vase, probably a kernos, from the Central Court 
[Credit: © EBSA/Chronis Papanikolopoulos]

The excavation further identified an early phase of Mycenaean occupation (end of 15th c. BC) within the settlement while the exploration of the cemetery was continued.

Source: Belgian School at Athens [September 22, 2017]

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Ancient textiles reveal differences in Mediterranean fabrics in the 1st millennium BC

Textiles represent one of the earliest human craft technologies and applied arts, and their production would have been one of the most important time, resource and labour consuming activities in the ancient past.

Twill example from Civita Castellana, Italy, seventh century BC [Credit: Margarita Gleba]

In archaeological contexts, textiles are relatively rare finds, especially in Mediterranean Europe where conditions are unfavourable for organic material preservation. Many archaeological textile fragments do, however, survive in mineralised form, which forms the basis of a new study published in Antiquity.

Detailed analysis of several hundred textile fragments has provided, for the first time, a much more detailed definition of the textile cultures in Italy and Greece during the first half of the first millennium BC.

According to Dr Margarita Gleba, the study's author and researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, "Luckily for us, during the Iron Age (c. 1000-400 BC) people were buried with a lot of metal goods such as personal ornaments, weapons and vessels. These metals are conducive to the preservation of textiles as the metal effectively kills off the micro-organisms which would otherwise consume the organic materials, while at the same time metal salts create casts of textile fibres, thereby preserving the textile microstructure."

Weft-faced tabby example from Corfu, Greece, sixth century BC [Credit: Artex]

"This is how we get such a large number of textiles, even though they only exist now in tiny fragments. Through meticulous analysis using digital and scanning electron microscopy, high performance liquid chromatography and other advanced methods we are able to determine a lot of information including the nature of the raw materials and structural features such as thread diameter, twist direction, type of weaving or binding, and thread count."

The technical differences suggest that during the Iron Age, textiles in Italy more closely resembled those found in Central Europe (associated with the Hallstatt culture that was prevalent in modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovenia) while the textile culture of Greece was largely connected with the Near East.

Dr Gleba added, "There is overwhelming evidence for frequent contact between Italy and Greece during the first half of the first millennium BC, but this evidence shows that their textile traditions were technically, aesthetically and conceptually very different. This means that the populations in these two regions are making an active decision to clothe themselves in a certain way and it may have to do with traditions set up already in the Bronze Age."

"Textiles have been and still are widely considered one of the most valuable indicators of individual and group identity. Even in societies today, we frequently form opinions of others based on the type of cloth they are wearing: tweed is associated with Irish and British country clothing, cashmere with Central Asia and silk with the Far East for example."

"Curiously, by Roman times, the establishment of Greek colonies in southern Italy and more general oriental influences observed in material culture of Italic populations leads towards gradual disappearance of the indigenous textile tradition. Our future research will attempt to understand the cause behind this change in textile culture."

Source: University of Cambridge [September 21, 2017]

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3-D analysis of dog fossils sheds light on domestication debate

In an effort to settle the debate about the origin of dog domestication, a technique that uses 3-D scans of fossils is helping researchers determine the difference between dogs and wolves.

3D plot of PC1–3 mandible shape variation. Black: dogs, dark grey: Alaskan wolves, light grey: European wolves, 
dark red: Ivolgin fossils, green: Ust’-Polui fossils, purple: Pleistocene Alaskan wolves, cyan: 1600CE fossil dogs, 
orange: unknown Alaskan fossil canids, pink: 1600CE fossil wolf [Credit: Scientific Reports (2017)]

In the ongoing debate, one camp believes dogs were domesticated in the Paleolithic age (more than 17,000 years ago), when humans were hunter-gatherers. The other camp believes domestication occurred in the Neolithic age (17,000 to 7,000 years ago), when humans first established agriculture and civilizations.

Abby Grace Drake, a senior lecturer in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and her colleagues have been analyzing 3-D scans of ancient fossil canid mandibles to determine whether they belong to dogs or wolves. The answer, they find, is not so simple.

The researchers found that in the early stages of domestication, the skull changed shape but evolution of the mandible lagged behind and did not co-evolve with the skull. Their study is reported in the journal Scientific Reports.

"A lot of the fossil evidence for the date of dog domestication is based on morphological [structural] analysis of mandibles," said Drake, the paper's first author. Robert Losey, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta, Canada, is a senior co-author of the paper. "Our study shows that when you measure modern dog mandibles and wolf mandibles using 3-D measurements you can distinguish them, and yet when we looked at these fossil mandibles, they don't look like dogs or wolves."

Wolves have fairly straight mandibles while dog mandibles are curved, structural features that become evident in a 3-D scan. In a proof of principle, when analyzing the 3-D structures of mandibles of modern dogs, Drake and colleagues correctly classified 99.5 percent of the samples as being dog or wolf.

This video shows how a canid mandible changes shape and curves during its transition from wolf to dog 

[Credit: Abby Grace Drake/Cornell University]

However, 3-D analysis of fossil records from four ancient sites, two from Russia and two from Alaska, found that most of those fossil mandibles could not be classified as either dog or wolf, even though features in canid skulls from the same sites as well as other data proved that the samples were dog remains.

Other evidence also showed that these canids were domesticated: The remains were found within human dwellings, remains at both the Russian sites revealed butchery marks, indicating that they were eaten, and isotope analysis of canid and human remains from one of the sites - Ust'-Polui, in the Russian Arctic - showed canids and humans were both eating fish, and humans were feeding their canids.

Since mandibles do not appear to evolve as rapidly as the skull, the results show they are not reliable for identifying early dog fossils, Drake said.

Four of 26 fossil mandibles from Ust'-Polui, which was occupied from 250 B.C. to 150 B.C., were identified as dogs, while three of the mandibles from the site were identified as wolves.

At another site, Ivolgin, in southern Russia, occupied between 300 B.C. and 200 B.C., none of the 20 mandibles were identified as dogs, though 8 were identified as wolves. All of the skulls found at these sites, 12 from Ivolgin and five from Ust'-Polui, were clearly identified as dogs.

Canid fossils of wolves and dogs from the Alaskan sites from 1600 CE were used as controls and to compare genetic testing against the structural 3-D data.

A 2015 paper by Drake and Michael Coquerelle, an anthropologist at the University Rey Juan Carlos in Alcorcon, Spain, and a co-author on the current paper, used the 3-D technique to refute a claim that dogs existed 30,000 years ago. That claim was based on linear caliper measurements of skulls. Linear measurements are inaccurate because dog and wolf skull sizes overlap, Drake said. On the other hand, 3-D analysis of skulls uses landmarks across the skull to identify differences between dogs and wolves in the angle of the muzzle, or snout, and in the angling of the eye orbits.

"The earliest dogs I've seen in my analysis are from 7,000 to 9,000 years ago," Drake said.

Author: Lindsey Hadlock | Source: Cornell University [September 21, 2017]

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Viking boat burial found in Norway

On one of the last days of the excavation in the market square, archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) became aware of a feature with a somewhat special shape.

The boat dates between the seventh and 10th centuries, around the time the Vikings began exploring and raiding Europe 
[Credit: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)]

The feature, which was dug into the natural deposits, had been disturbed in several places by later pits and postholes, but it was quite clearly boat-shaped.

"Careful excavation revealed that no wood remained intact, but lumps of rust and some poorly-preserved nails indicated that it was a boat that was buried here", says archaeologist Ian Reed.

The remains of the boat show that it was at least 4 meters long and oriented more or less north-south.

Skeletal remains

The boat contained two long bones, which, like the boat, were oriented north-south.

"This suggests that there was a human skeleton contained within the boat. Because of the poor state of preservation we will have to carry out DNA tests to be 100% certain that the bones are human", says Reed.

The boat is damaged several places by pits and post holes. Cautious excavation has reveiled that there is no wood left 
but clumps of rust and some poorly preserved nails that show that this is probably a boat grave 
[Credit: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)]

Sheet bronze and a key

Other finds included a small piece of sheet bronze, located up against one of the bones, as well as what are likely personal items from the grave.

"In a posthole dug through the middle of the boat we found a piece of a spoon and part of a key for a chest. If this is from the grave then it can probably be dated from the 7th to the 10th century", says Reed.

Could it be an Åfjord boat?

The location away from today’s harbor and the fjord suggests that the boat grave dates from the late Iron Age, or perhaps the early Viking Age.

"It is likely a boat that has been dug down into the ground and been used as a coffin for the dead. There has also probably been a burial mound over the boat and grave", says NIKU’s Knut Paasche, a specialist in early boats.

Sketcth of an Åfjord boat [Credit: Nordlandsbåten og Åfjordsbåten av G. Eldjarn og J. Godal, 1988.]

He believes that the boat type is similar to an Åfjord boat, which has historically been a common sight along the Trøndelag coast.

"This type of boat is relatively flat in the bottom midship. The boat can also be flat-bottomed as it is intended to go into shallow waters on the river Nidelven. Boat graves are common from the Iron Age and into the Viking Period, but this is the first time a ship burial from this period has been discovered in Trondheim city centre."

"This is another discovery by NIKU that refers to a Trondheim older than the medieval city. Other Viking settlements such as Birka, Gokstad or Kaupang, all have graves in close proximity to the trading centre", says Paasche.

Work on the boat has now been completed.

Source: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research [September 21, 2017]

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Urartian necropolis reveals burial customs

Excavations in a Urartian necropolis in the eastern province of Van’s Çavuştepe Castle, which has been plundered by treasure hunters in recent years, provide important details about Urartian burial customs.

AA Photo

The Culture and Tourism Ministry has initiated excavations to rescue the necropolis in the castle. During the excavations, a tomb was unearthed with the skeletons of a man and a woman. Officials believe they were husband and wife because they were buried together. A bronze belt, tray, seal and several bronze jewelries were also found in the tomb.

Along with the tomb of the wife and husband, a horse skeleton was also found in the search. Officials say it is the first horse skeleton unearthed in a Urartian tomb, making it the most important finding among other discoveries in the castle. Samples from the horse skeleton will be analyzed to determine the age and species of the horse.

Close to the horse skeleton, the excavation team found many oxidized and deformed iron pieces and bronze nails. The first observations on the pieces show that these findings may have belonged to a horse carriage.

AA Photo

Illegal excavations in the necropolis have so far given extensive damage to the field, erasing the traces of thousands of years of customs.

The main purpose of the recent works was to rescue the necropolis from treasure hunters and also to obtain information about people’s social lives, faiths and burial customs. Two different types of burial methods have been determined in the field.

The first one is the urn-type burial, in which the dead people are cremated and their ashes are buried. Eight urn-type tombs were unearthed in the southern part of the excavation field. The tombs were found in an underground of nearly half a meter depth and most of them were broken.

AA Photo

In the second type of burial method, the dead are placed in a tomb in hocker position, just like in a mother’s womb. The Çavuştepe Castle, where the Urartian people were buried after death, was built in 750 B.C. by the Urartian King Sarduri II. The necropolis in the castle was used by people who lived there for the next 200 years.

Recent excavations in the castle have been carried out by Yüzüncü Yıl University Archaeology Department academic Associate Professor Rafet Çavuşoğlu.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News [September 21, 2017]

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Racism behind outlandish theories about Africa’s ancient architecture

Some of the most impressive buildings and cities ever made by humans can be found in Africa: the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe, Mapungubwe in South Africa, Kenya’s Gedi Ruins and Meroe in Sudan. Perhaps the most awe-inspiring of these are the last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.

The pyramids of Giza on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt [Credit: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

This should come as no surprise. Africa has an extensive archaeological record, extending as far back as 3.3 million years ago when the first-ever stone tool was made in what is today Kenya. The continent’s cultural complexity and diversity is well established; it is home to the world’s oldest-known pieces of art. And, of course, it is the birth place of modern humans’ ancient ancestors, Homo sapiens.

Despite all this evidence, some people still refuse to believe that anyone from Africa (or anywhere in what is today considered the developing world) could possibly have created and constructed the Giza pyramids or other ancient masterpieces. Instead, they credit ancient astronauts, extraterrestrials or time travellers as the real builders.

Well, you may ask, so what? Who cares if relatively few people don’t believe the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids? What’s the harm? Actually, there is great harm: firstly, these people try to prove their theories by travelling the world and desecrating ancient artefacts. Secondly, they perpetuate and give air to the racist notion that only Europeans – white people – ever were and ever will be capable of such architectural feats.

A threat to world heritage

In 2014 two German pseudo-scientists set out to “prove” that academics were concealing the Giza pyramids’ “real” origin. To do so, they chiselled off a piece of one of the pyramids – of course, without authorisation, so they could “analyse” it.

And earlier in 2017 scientists from the World Congress on Mummy Studies in South America published a communique on their Facebook page to draw attention to the raiding of Nazca graves for a pseudo-scientific research programme called the Alien project. It insists that aliens rather than ancient Peruvians were responsible for the famous geoglyphs called the Nazca Lines, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Such incidents exemplify the threats to developing nations’ cultural heritage. Conservation authorities around the world must spend a great deal of money to protect and restore unique pieces of heritage, and to guard them against vandalism. For instance, the most recent overhaul planned for the Giza site – back in 2008 – was estimated at a cost of USD$45 million.

These are not wealthy nations, as a rule, and it costs money they often don’t have to repair the damage done by, among others, pseudo-scientists.

The ancient city of Meroe [Credit: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

Racism and colonial attitudes

A series of stone circles in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province provides an excellent example of the other problem with pseudo-archaeologists. Some people genuinely believe that these structures were designed by aliens. They scoff at scientific research that proves the stone circles were made by the Koni people using ropes, sticks and wood. They will not even entertain the notion that ancient African tribes could be responsible.

But the same people have no problem believing that medieval Europeans built the continent’s magnificent cathedrals using only ropes, sticks and wood. They dismiss scientific research that overwhelmingly proves ancient Africans’ prowess, but insist the documents which contain evidence of Europeans’ construction processes are beyond reproach.

Why is it so hard for some to acknowledge that ancient non-European civilisations like the Aztecs, people from Easter Island, ancient Egyptians or Bantu-speakers from southern Africa could create intricate structures?

The answer is unfortunately as simple as it seems: it boils down to profound racism and a feeling of white superiority that emanates from the rotting corpse of colonialism.

Colonial powers saw their “subjects” in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia as exotic, fascinating – but ultimately primitive.

An increasing knowledge and understanding of the archaeological record mostly dispelled these notions. But for some, and until nowadays, it seems unthinkable that ancient non-European societies have been resourceful and creative enough to erect such monuments. So, the thinking went, conventional science must have been missing or hiding something: ancient astronauts, aliens, or the lost civilisation of Atlantis. Even some mainstream scholars have dabbled in this thinking.

Telling the truth

The internet and social media has given these modern conspiracy junkies a perfect platform to share their theories. They try to make others believe that scientists are hiding “the truth” about ancient monuments. Sometimes they even succeed.

There is a risk that they will drown out quality knowledge and science with their colourful, outlandish theories. When such bizarre theories emerge, it can water down people’s understanding and appreciation of Africa’s architectural and cultural heritage.

At the same time, these theories can prevent awareness about Africa’s rich heritage from developing. The heirs of the real builders may never learn about their ancestors’ remarkable achievements.

Scientists have a crucial role to play in turning the tide on such harmful theories. Those of us who are doing ongoing research around the continent’s architectural and fossil record should be sharing our findings in a way that engages ordinary people.

We must show them just how awe-inspiring structures like Great Zimbabwe, Meroe and the Giza Pyramids are – not because they were created by some alien race, but because they are living proof of ancient societies’ ingenuity.

Author: Julien Benoit | Source: The Conversation [September 20, 2017]

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New scientific dating research unravels the story of life in prehistoric Orkney

A new study, published today in Antiquity journal, is challenging the previously understood narrative for prehistoric life on Orkney. It was led by Professor Alex Bayliss of Historic England and is based on the interrogation of more than 600 radiocarbon dates, enabling much more precise estimates of the timing and duration of events in the period c.3200-2500 BC.

Excavating the Smerquoy Hoose [Credit: © Colin Richards]

The study is part of a much wider project, The Times of Their Lives, funded by the European Research Council (2012-2017), which has applied the same methodology to a wider series of case studies across Neolithic Europe. That project has demonstrated many other examples of more dynamic and punctuated sequences than previously suspected in 'prehistory'.

Neolithic Orkney is well-preserved and is a time of stone houses, stone circles and elaborate burial monuments. World-renowned sites such as the Skara Brae settlement, Maeshowe passage grave, and the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness circles have long been known and are in the World Heritage Site (given this status in 1999). They have been joined by more recent discoveries of great settlement complexes such as Barnhouse and Ness of Brodgar.

The new study reveals in much more detail than previously possible the fluctuating fortunes of the communities involved in these feats of construction and their social interaction. It used a Bayesian statistical approach to combine calibrated radiocarbon dates with knowledge of the archaeological contexts that the finds have come from to provide much more precise chronologies than those previously available.

Aerial view of Barnhouse [Credit: © Colin Richards]

Professor Alex Bayliss of Historic England, leader of the Orkney study, said: 'This study shows that new statistical analysis of the large numbers of radiocarbon dates that are now available in British archaeology really changes what we can know about our pasts. People in the Neolithic made choices, just like us, about all sorts of things - where to live, how to bury their dead, how to farm, where and when to gather together - and those choices are just beginning to come into view through archaeology. It's an exciting time to be an archaeological scientist!'

The study indicates:

• Orkney was probably first colonised in c. 3600 cal BC (cal indicates dates calibrated by radiocarbon dating). There was an expansion and growth of settlement and building of monuments from c. 3300 cal BC.

• Settlement peaked in the period c. 3100-2900 cal BC

• There was a phase of decline c. 2800-2600 cal BC, measured by the number of stone houses in use

• Settlement resumed in c. 2600-2300 cal BC, but only away from the 'core' area of the Brodgar-Stenness peninsula in western Mainland. It was probably about this time that the Ring of Brodgar itself was erected, probably bringing people together from across Orkney but into what was now a sacred, not a domestic, landscape

Excavating Ring of Brodgar [Credit: © Colin Richards]

The study suggests that the period saw competition between communities that was played out in how they buried their dead and in their communal gatherings and rituals.

The study also throws up other complexities in the sequence of development on the island:

• An overlap between the construction of different kinds of burials tombs - passage graves and large stalled cairns - in the later fourth millennium cal BC

• An overlap between the emergence of the new pottery style, flat-based Grooved Ware, characteristic of the Late Neolithic in Orkney, and the round-based pottery of earlier Neolithic inhabitants

• The first appearance of the non-native Orkney vole, Microtus agrestis, c. 3200 cal BC. This is significant as it is found today on Orkney and on the European continent but not in mainland Britain. It was probably introduced via direct long-distance sea travel between Orkney and the continent. The study therefore also considers whether new people from continental Europe were part of this complex cultural scenario.

Ring of Brodgar [Credit: © Colin Richards]

Professor Alasdair Whittle of Cardiff University, Principal Investigator of The Times of Their Lives, said: 'Visitors come from all over the world to admire the wonderfully preserved archaeological remains of Orkney, in what may seem a timeless setting. Our study underlines that the Neolithic past was often rapidly changing, and that what may appear to us to be enduring monuments were in fact part of a dynamic historical context.'

Professor Colin Richards of the University of the Highlands and Islands in Kirkwall, Orkney, and co-author of the study, said: 'Our study shows how much remains to be discovered in Orkney about the Neolithic period, even though it may appear well known. This applies throughout the sequence, including in the period of decline at its end.'

Source: Historic England [September 20, 2017]

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2017 excavations at Minoan cemetery in Petras Siteia concluded

The excavation of the unplundered Pre- and Proto-Palatial Minoan cemetery (2800-1800 BC) at Petras Siteia in eastern Crete continued for the 12th season under the direction Dr. Metaxia Tsipopoulou, with excellent results.

Minoan site of Petras [Credit: Petras Excavations Facebook]

In previous years some 17 monumental tombs, a funerary rock shelter, three pits and two extensive ritual spaces erected and used by prominent families of the palatial settlement have been excavated.

Monumental tomb [Credit: Petras Excavations Facebook]

The quantity and preservation of the skeletal remains is exceptional, as well as the variety of grave goods, many of which are made from imported raw materials.

Some of the grave goods discovered this year [Credit: Petras Excavations Facebook]

Finds include a large number of gold and silver jewellery, bronze tools, more than 200 stone vases, 65 seals carved from ivory and semi-precious stones, two signet rings and numerous small ceremonial statues.

Aerial view of the Minoan cemetery at Petras [Credit: Petras Excavations Facebook]

The quantity of ceramics is also very important and includes a large number of decorated, mainly ritual, vessels.

This year's excavations focused primarily on Early Minoan II and Middle Minoan II burial groups, which yielded new ivory seals, unique gold jewellery, beads of gold and semi-precious stones, as well as stone vases, figurines and polychrome 'Kamares' ware.

Source: ANA-MPA [September 20, 2017]

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How Teotihuacan's urban design was lost and found

Name one civilization located in the Americas that pre-dates the arrival of Europeans. You probably replied with the Aztecs, the Inca or perhaps the Maya. A new paper, published in De Gruyter's open access journal Open Archeology, by Michael E. Smith of Arizona State University shows how this view of American civilizations is narrow. It is entitled "The Teotihuacan Anomaly: The Historical Trajectory of Urban Design in Ancient Central Mexico".

A sun pyramid in Teotihuacan [Credit: Ricardo David Sánchez]

Smith, using a map produced by the Teotihuacan mapping project, conducted a comparative analysis of the city with earlier and later Mesoamerican urban centers and has proved, for the first time, the uniqueness of the city. The paper outlines how the urban design of the city of Teotihuacan differed from past and subsequent cities, only to be rediscovered and partially modelled on many centuries later by the Aztecs.

Teotihuacan was in touch with other Mesoamerican civilizations and at the height of its influence between 100 - 650 AD, it was the largest city in the Americas, and one of the largest in the world. It is unclear who the builders of the city were, and what relation they had to the peoples which followed. It is possible they were related to the Nahua or Totonac peoples. It is also unclear why the city was abandoned. There are several theories which include foreign invasion, a civil war, an ecological catastrophe, or some combination of all three.

The Aztecs, who reached the height of their power about a thousand years later, held Teotihuacan in reverence. The site of Teotihuacan is located about forty kilometers from the site of the Aztec capital. They claimed to be the descendants of the Teotihuacans. That may or may not be true, but the Teotihuacans had a huge influence on the later Aztec culture. The name Teotihuacan comes from the Aztec language, and means 'the birthplace of the gods' and they believed it was the location of the creation of the universe. But the paper outlines how the influence of this ancient culture on the Aztecs was not limited only to their cultural beliefs, but also how it affected the urban design of their capital city, and also how unparalleled that original design was.

Most ancient cities throughout Mesoamerica followed the same planning principles, and they included the same kinds of buildings. Each city usually had a well-planned central area which included temples, a royal palace, a ballcourt, and a plaza that was surrounded by a much more chaotic (in terms of planning) residential area. Teotihuacan most likely had no royal palace, no ballcourt, and no central areas. It was much larger than cities before it, and the residential areas were much better planned than its predecessors, and it had an innovation unique in world history - the apartment compound. Buildings with one entrance that contained many households had been rare before the industrial revolution and those that did exist were for the poor. Teotihuacan's were spacious and comfortable.

"Teotihuacan stood alone as the only city using a new and very different set of planning principles, and its apartment compounds represent a unique form of urban residence not just in Mesoamerica but in world urban history," said Michael E. Smith.

All of these features were unique in Central America before and after, until the Aztecs drew their inspiration for their capital Tenochtitlan from Teotihuacan using many of the same features.

Source: De Gruyter Open [September 20, 2017]

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Lost temple of Artemis found on Greek island of Euboea

A Swiss-led team of archaeologists in Greece has made a spectacular find: the temple of Artemis, a famous open-air sanctuary of antiquity.

Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture

Researchers have been looking for the sanctuary for more than a century. The site was found at the foot of the Paleoekklisies hill near the small fishing town of Amarynthos on the Greek island of Euboea. It’s about 10km from the place where the temple was wrongly thought to be located.

Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture

Since 2007, the search for the sanctuary has been led by Karl Reber, a professor at the Universty of Lausanne and director of the Swiss School of Archaeology in Athens.

Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture

Researchers found parts of a massive wall dating back to the classical era, which they believe belongs to the stoa or portico built near the temple. Exploratory trenches were opened in Amarynthos in 2012, and the Swiss team brought to light a bigger part of the building.

Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture

Now, after also finding artefacts with inscriptions, they are sure that they have located the site of the Artemis Amarynthia, which was the end point of the annual procession of people from the once prosperous trading city of Eretrea, 10km away.

They held a festival in honour of Artemis, the untameable goddess of hunting in Greek mythology. She was worshipped as the patron goddess of Amarynthos, which takes its name from an Eretrean man who was besotted by Artemis.

Source: Swissinfo [September 20, 2017]

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60 ancient shipwrecks found by climate scientists at bottom of Black Sea

Dozens of perfectly preserved ancient shipwrecks have been found at the bottom of the Black Sea. A total of 60 wrecks were discovered dating back as far as 2,500 years, including galleys from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

Dozens of perfectly preserved ancient shipwrecks have been found at the bottom of the Black Sea. This image shows a 3D 
model of a Roman ship lying in over 2000m (650 ft) of water. Its mast still stands, both quarter rudders with their tillers
 are still attached. Rope is still draped over the frames due to the preservation of materials 
in the Black Sea’s anoxic conditions [Credit: BlackSeaMap]

Scientists stumbled upon the graveyard while using underwater robots to survey the effects of climate change along the Bulgarian coast. Because the Black Sea contains almost no light or oxygen, little life can survive, meaning the wrecks are in excellent condition.

Researchers say their discovery is 'truly unrivalled'. Many of the ships have features that are only known from drawings or written description but never seen until now. Carvings in the wood of some ships have remained intact for centuries, while well-preserved rope was found aboard one 2,000-year-old Roman vessel.

The wrecks, such as this one from the Medieval period, are astonishingly well preserved due to the anoxic conditions 
(absence of oxygen) of the Black Sea below 150 metres (490 ft). This trading vessel was found with 
the towers on the bow and stern still mostly in place [Credit: Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz]

The project, known Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (Black Sea MAP), involves an international team led by the University of Southampton's Centre for Maritime Archaeology.

Ed Parker, CEO of Black Sea MAP, said: 'Some of the ships we discovered had only been seen on murals and mosaics until this moment. There's one medieval trading vessel where the towers on the bow and stern are pretty much still there. It's as if you are looking at a ship in a movie, with ropes still on the deck and carvings in the wood. When I saw that ship, the excitement really started to mount – what we have found is truly unrivalled.'

Shown here is a shipwreck from the Ottoman period discovered 300 metres beneath the Black Sea. Many of the 
wrecks' details and locations are being kept secret by the team to ensure they remain undisturbed 
[Credit: Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz]

Most of the vessels found are around 1,300 years old, but the oldest dates back to the 4th Century BC. Many of the wrecks' details and locations are being kept secret by the team to ensure they remain undisturbed.

Black Sea water below 150 metres (490 ft) is anoxic, meaning the environment cannot support the organisms that typically feast on organic materials, such as wood and flesh. As a result, there is an extraordinary opportunity for preservation, including shipwrecks and the cargoes they carried.

The researchers used two Remotely Operated Vehicles (pictured) to survey the sea bed. These have discovered a number 
of wrecks over a series of expeditions spanning three years, including the one pictured from the Byzantine period, 
found in October last year [Credit: Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz]

Ships lie hundreds or thousands of metres deep with their masts still standing, rudders in place, cargoes of amphorae and ship's fittings lying on deck. Many of the ships show structural features, fittings and equipment that are only known from drawings or written description but never seen until now.

Project leader Professor Jon Adams, of the University of Southampton, said: 'This assemblage must comprise one of the finest underwater museums of ships and seafaring in the world.'

While the primary focus of the project is to carry out geophysical surveys, shipwrecks, including this one from the 
Ottoman period, have given new insights into how communities live on the shores of the Black Sea 
[Credit: Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz]

The expedition has been scouring the waters 1,800 metres (5,900ft) below the surface of the Black Sea since 2015 using an off-shore vessel equipped with some of the most advanced underwater equipment in the world. The vessel is on an expedition mapping submerged ancient landscapes which were inundated with water following the last Ice Age.

The researchers had discovered over 40 wrecks across two previous expeditions, but during their latest trip, which spanned several weeks and returned this month, they uncovered more than 20 new sites.

Scientists have accidentally discovered a graveyard of ancient shipwrecks while using underwater Remotely Operated 
Vehicles to survey the effects of climate change along the Bulgarian coast. Pictured are researchers exploring 
a recently discovered 2,000-year-old Roman galley buried in the seabed [Credit: BlackSeaMap]

Returning to the Port of Burgas in Bulgaria, Professor Jon Adams said: 'Black Sea MAP now draws towards the end of its third season, acquiring more than 1300km [800 miles] of survey so far, recovering another 100m (330 ft) of sediment core samples and discovering over 20 new wreck sites, some dating to the Byzantine, Roman and Hellenistic periods.' 

The researchers are using two Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to survey the sea bed. One is optimised for high resolution 3D photography, while the other, called Surveyor Interceptor, 'flies' at four times the speed of conventional ROVs.

The researchers had discovered over 40 wrecks across two previous expeditions, but during their latest trip, which 
returned this month, they uncovered more than 20 new sites, including a 2,000-year-old Roman galley 
shown here [Credit: BlackSeaMap]

The Interceptor carries an entire suite of geophysical instrumentation, as well as lights, high definition cameras and a laser scanner. Since the project started, Surveyor Interceptor has set new records for depth at 5,900ft (1,800 metres) and sustained speed  of over six knots (7mph), and has covered 1,250 kilometres (776 miles).

Among the wrecks are ships from the Roman, Ottoman and Byzantine Empires, which provide new information on the communities on the Black Sea coast. Many of the colonial and commercial activities of ancient Greece and Rome, and of the Byzantine Empire, centred on the Black Sea.

De Jersey said it was possible that a monk hid the body of the porpoise because he was not supposed to have it, or that the body was placed in the hole in salt to preserve it.

“It may have been packed in salt and then for some reason they didn’t come back to it.”

Another intriguing theory is that the animal had some sort of religious significance to the people who used the island. “The dolphin has a strong significance in Christianity but I’ve not come across anything like this before,” said De Jersey. “It’s the slightly wacky kind of thing that you might get in the iron age but not in medieval times.”

He said it was the most unusual find in his 35-year career. “It’s very peculiar, I don’t know what to make of it. Why go to the trouble of burying a porpoise in what looks like a grave. It’s a wonderful surprise.”

As well as the porpoise remains, shards of 14th-century pottery, a prehistoric stone tool and what is believed to be the remains of the walls of the monks’ retreat have been found.

The porpoise remains have been removed and will be studied by a marine expert.

Author: Steven Morris | Source: The Guardian [September 19, 2017]

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Contents of Jules Verne 'time capsule' revealed

The archaeological team who discovered a 19th-century metallic box in the French Pyrenees a few months ago have finally revealed its contents. It is thanks to the works of Jules Verne that the box was discovered, and particularly to the analysis of the writer's tomb.

Researchers opening the box [Credit: The Explorers Club NYC]

Archaeologists and historians from the original team, alongside experts from The Explorers Club NYC, worked together during the opening and extraction of the contents of the box, all having previous experience in handling similar historical artefacts. The contents of the box have been unveiled via an online video.

The contents of the box [Credit: The Explorers Club NYC]

In the video, we can see that to avoid breaking the lock, experts tried to access the box from the side using a snake camera. This proved unsuccessful due to its complexity and they eventually had to force the lock. Among the metal-based objects that were found: a telescope, a triangle, a medieval coin, a simple ring, a necklace and a key. All were found in a state of advanced oxidation.

Among the other extracted pieces that were found: a book relating to a mining treaty, containing several alchemic references; a leather notebook with documents inside; a map of Europe with noticeable marks on Peloponnese regions and documents about the phases of the moon. Interestingly, a copy of a New York newspaper dating from 1890 was also found, with a story referencing Nellie Bly, who had managed to break the world record by traveling the world in 72 days, inspired by Jules Verne's novel.

The famous author's tomb [Credit: L'Universite Paris Descartes]

The most noticeable aspect of the documents are the number of anagrams, lines, and manuscripts with symbols and drawings which are unclear, and may be cryptograms or codes from an unknown secret society. Although it is not yet confirmed whether the documents and objects found actually belonged to Jules Verne, everything indicates that they had at least belonged to the sculptor of the author's tomb, or people close to him.

The box as it was found [Credit: L'Universite Paris Descartes]

According to our sources, experts are beginning to scan and catalog every one of the items found. A report will then be written showing their results and conclusions.

Source: The Explorers Club NYC via PR NewsWire [September 19, 2017]

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