Archaeological News

[R011]

I guess they are focusing on the 200 warriors that seem to have been dumped as sacrifices there after a battle. Should be interesting to follow.

Any idea why they think they're sacrifices rather than battle casualties? Do they all have the ancient equivalent of a bullet-to-the-back-of-the-head, for instance?

[Corinthian]

If it IS him, I wonder if they will give him a medieval style funeral. He clearly deserves it after all this time.

 

or a modern funeral fit for a king. same here, wondering about that, too. iirc, when they moved some of the pharoah mummies, it was done in a procession based on ancient egyptian royal procedure or something like that. iirc, some solemn ceremony was done as well wrt czar nicholas and his family during putin's time. would be cool if the current royal family can spare some cash to sponsor a royal funeral for richard iii.

[Soren Ras]

No one is saying they are not battle casualties. In fact, that is what at least the 200 warriors seem to have been. However, sacrifices need not be done in the Hollywood fashion, with a live victim being killed on site. It was also used to bring bodies of slain enemies to the bog and offering them as sacrifices. It was a convenient way of burying the remains while hopefully getting brownie points with the gods. Of course, sometimes a good old fashioned live human sacrifice was enacted, but was not necessarily common. In those cases, more likely than not, you took a criminal and combined terrestrial justice with celestial placation.

 

Sacrifical bogs were common at the time and in this case, there are also a large number of animal remains and other typical characteristics of sacrificial sites (pottery shards, wooden idols and such).

 

So, it appears there was a battle, and the victors hauled the dead of the battlefield to the bog and threw everyone in as sacrifices, no doubt hoping for excellent harvests, further success against their enemies (and of course big boners and a cure for hair loss).

 

--

Soren

[X-Files]

http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2012/08/sacrificed-army-unearthed-in-danish-bogs.html#.UFNBkVGd6So

 

Background bog tales

http://www.archaeology.org/1005/bogbodies/

[Ivanhoe]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/18/enormous-roman-mosaic-found-under-farmer-field/

 

A giant poolside mosaic featuring intricate geometric patterns has been unearthed in southern Turkey, revealing the far-reaching influence of the Roman Empire at its peak.

The mosaic, which once decorated the floor of a bath complex, abuts a 25-foot (7-meter)-long pool, which would have been open to the air, said Michael Hoff, a University of Nebraska, Lincoln art historian and director of the mosaic excavation. The find likely dates to the third or fourth century, Hoff said. The mosaic itself is an astonishing 1,600 square feet (149 square meters) — the size of a modest family home.

[X-Files]

MANILA, Philippines -- Archaeologists have unearthed remnants of what they believe is a 1,000-year-old village on a jungle-covered mountaintop in the Philippines with limestone coffins of a type never before found in this Southeast Asian nation, officials said Thursday.

[toysoldier]

MANILA, Philippines -- Archaeologists have unearthed remnants of what they believe is a 1,000-year-old village on a jungle-covered mountaintop in the Philippines with limestone coffins of a type never before found in this Southeast Asian nation, officials said Thursday.

 

Holy crap, Tomas, they found the ancient overlords!

[Ivanhoe]

MANILA, Philippines -- Archaeologists have unearthed remnants of what they believe is a 1,000-year-old village on a jungle-covered mountaintop in the Philippines with limestone coffins of a type never before found in this Southeast Asian nation, officials said Thursday.

 

Holy crap, Tomas, they found the ancient overlords!

 

All but one...

[Mike Steele]

MANILA, Philippines -- Archaeologists have unearthed remnants of what they believe is a 1,000-year-old village on a jungle-covered mountaintop in the Philippines with limestone coffins of a type never before found in this Southeast Asian nation, officials said Thursday.

 

Holy crap, Tomas, they found the ancient overlords!

 

All but one...

 

Aye. All but one.... and the sharks with Lazers on their heads....

[Corinthian]

I see they have dug up the remains of my battlecruiser's crew....

[X-Files]

↑ Took you long enough to digest this.

[Max H]

Nazi Buddha 'came from outer space' (BBC)

 

Exactly what it sez on the tin.

[Ivanhoe]

Could have posted this in the bacon thread amongst others...

 

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-scientists-oldest-evidence-regular-meat.html

 

A skull fragment unearthed by anthropologists in Tanzania shows that our ancient ancestors were eating meat at least 1.5 million years ago, shedding new light into the evolution of human physiology and brain development. "Meat eating has always been considered one of the things that made us human, with the protein contributing to the growth of our brains," said Charles Musiba, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, who helped make the discovery. "Our work shows that 1.5 million years ago we were not opportunistic meat eaters, we were actively hunting and eating meat."

[X-Files]

The suspected tomb and remains of a great Maya warrior queen have been discovered in Guatemala, archaeologists say.

Uncovered at the site of the ancient city of El Perú-Waka', the tomb has been identified as likely belonging to Lady K'abel, military ruler of the Wak, or "Centipede," kingdom between A.D. 672 and 692.

The tomb was found this year in the ruins of the city's main pyramid temple during excavations led by archaeologist David Freidel of Washington University in St. Louis.

The body inside was buried with various offerings, including ceramic vessels, jade jewelry, stone figurines, and, crucially, a small alabaster jar carved in the shape of a conch shell, out of which the carved head and arms of an old woman emerge.

Maya hieroglyphs on the back of the jar include the names "Lady Water Lily Hand" and "Lady Snake Lord," according to the study team.

 

What the Queen might have looked like -

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121004-tomb-maya-warrior-queen-science-archaeology/

 

[X-Files]

A huge geoglyph in the shape of an elk or deer discovered in Russia may predate Peru's famous Nazca Lines by thousands of years. The animal-shaped stone structure, located near Lake Zjuratkul in the Ural Mountains, north of Kazakhstan, has an elongated muzzle, four legs and two antlers. A historical Google Earth satellite image from 2007 shows what may be a tail, but this is less clear in more recent imagery.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49389775/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.UHjqa1Gd6Sp

[BansheeOne]

Spot where Julius Caesar was stabbed discovered

 

Concrete structure believed to mark location of Roman ruler's killing

 

By Stephanie Pappas Senior writer

 

Archaeologists believe they have found the first physical evidence of the spot where Julius Caesar died, according to a new Spanish National Research Council report.

 

Caesar, the head of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a group of rival Roman senators on March 15, 44 B.C., the Ides of March. The assassination is well-covered in classical texts, but until now, researchers had no archaeological evidence of the place where it happened.

 

Now, archaeologists have unearthed a concrete structure nearly 10 feet wide and 6.5 feet tall that may have been erected by Augustus, Julius Caesar's successor, to condemn the assassination. The structure is at the base of the Curia, or Theater, of Pompey, the spot where classical writers reported the stabbing took place.

 

"We always knew that Julius Caesar was killed in the Curia of Pompey on March 15th 44 B.C. because the classical texts pass on so, but so far no material evidence of this fact, so often depicted in historicist painting and cinema, had been recovered," Antonio Monterroso, a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, said in a statement.

 

Classical texts also say that years after the assassination, the Curia was closed and turned into a memorial chapel for Caesar. The researchers are studying this building along with another monument in the same complex, the Portico of the Hundred Columns, or Hecatostylon; they are looking for links between the archaeology of the assassination and what has been portrayed in art.

 

"It is very attractive, in a civic and citizen sense, that thousands of people today take the bus and the tram right next to the place where Julius Caesar was stabbed 2,056 years ago," Monterroso said.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn...52#.UHksmG8mSSo

[Max H]

http://www.nature.com/news/how-to-eat-a-triceratops-1.11650

How to eat a Triceratops

 

 

Tyrannosaurus tore the head off armoured prey to reach the tender neck meat.

 

It has illustrations.

[X-Files]

http://specials.msn.com/msnvideo/video?videoid=5191875e-ee87-499e-9c45-fa23cacfae10&from=en-us_msnhp

[R011]

http://specials.msn.com/msnvideo/video?videoid=5191875e-ee87-499e-9c45-fa23cacfae10&from=en-us_msnhp

Nine mysteries, perhaps. It seems Celtic Wood was solved long ago. It 's believed they know what happened to the 37 soldiers (not quite a full battalion) of an 85 man raiding party who became MIA's that day. The short story - they died in No-Man's-Land withe their remains were rendered unidentifiable by artillery. Not an uncommon fate on the Western Front.

[X-Files]

Halloween brings trick-or-treaters, candy and rather macabre displays of skeletons and graves suddenly dotting suburban lawns.

All in fun, but for the ancient Celts who cooked up the autumn festival of Samhain, a predecessor to today's Halloween, a new study confirms such displays were serious business.

"The ancient Celts were most definitely head-hunters," prone to displaying these trophies, says anthropologist Mary Voigt, who has long headed the Penn Museum's excavations at the storied site of Gordion in modern-day Turkey. "And they were definitely Celts at Gordion."

 

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/rss/article/279976/82/Celtic-sacrifices-confirmed-at-famed-ancient-site

[JWB]

Europe's 'Oldest Town' Identified Near Provadia In Eastern Bulgaria

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/europes-oldest-town-bulgarian-archaeologist_n_2056748.html?ncid=webmail33#slide=1435512

[BP]

I wonder if Hurricane Sandy's storm surge uncovered the portal to Hell Snookie and the rest of the "Jersey Shore" crew crawled through on their way to the surface. Could be interesting archaeology.

[X-Files]

ISTANBUL (AP) — Few archaeological sites seem as entwined with conflict, ancient and modern, as the city of Karkemish.

The scene of a battle mentioned in the Bible, it lies smack on the border between Turkey and Syria, where civil war rages today. Twenty-first century Turkish sentries occupy an acropolis dating back more than 5,000 years, and the ruins were recently demined. Visible from crumbling, earthen ramparts, a Syrian rebel flag flies in a town that regime forces fled just months ago.

A Turkish-Italian team is conducting the most extensive excavations there in nearly a century, building on the work of British Museum teams that included T.E. Lawrence, the adventurer known as Lawrence of Arabia. The plan is to open the site along the Euphrates river to tourists in late 2014.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/archaeologists-explore-syria-turkey-border-072126165.html

 

 

Brent Huffman, a documentary film-maker and professor at Northwestern University, USA, first visited the ancient Buddhist city of Mes Aynak in June of 2011 and immediately fell in love with the site. From that point onwards he has campaigned tirelessly to bring the plight of Mes Aynak into the public consciousness so that it can be saved for future generations of Afghans and the international community.

Environmental devastation

 

In addition to destroying one of Afghanistan’s most important archaeological findings, the copper mine that is due to start operating on the site will almost certainly devastate the environment by polluting the land and water supply in Logar province and kill all life in the area.

 

 

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/11/2012/help-save-the-cultural-heritage-of-afghanistan

[Max H]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20242658

Mammoth skeleton discovered near Paris

 

French archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research say that they have discovered a rare, near complete skeleton of a mammoth in Changis-sur-Marne northeast Paris.

It is thought to be that of an adult woolly mammoth, a species which died out around 10,000 years ago.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20230282

Bolivia returns stolen mummy to Peru

 

Bolivia has returned a 700-year-old mummy to Peru, from where it was stolen by antiquities traffickers.

The mummy of a child of about two years of age is only 30cm (12in) tall and sits wrapped in blankets.

Bolivian police seized it two years ago from a woman who was going to ship it to France.

Experts determined it was an original but found that one of its legs had been added later presumably by the smugglers who wanted to raise its value.

Experts have not been able to determine the sex of the mummy but archaeologists think it came from a pre-Inca culture of coastal Peru.

[BP]

 

Bolivia returns stolen mummy to Peru

 

Bolivia has returned a 700-year-old mummy to Peru, from where it was stolen by antiquities traffickers.

The mummy of a child of about two years of age is only 30cm (12in) tall and sits wrapped in blankets.

Bolivian police seized it two years ago from a woman who was going to ship it to France.

Experts determined it was an original but found that one of its legs had been added later presumably by the smugglers who wanted to raise its value.

Experts have not been able to determine the sex of the mummy but archaeologists think it came from a pre-Inca culture of coastal Peru.

 

A cavalier handling of the dead for commercial purposes is offensive.

 

But what is even more disturbing is WHO THE F@#$ HAS A SPARE MUMMY LEG just laying around to add value to a mummy?