Archaeology in the News

[JMcB]

Harpole jewellery reveals 'breath-taking' medieval burial secrets
12th December 2023,



A necklace found at the Harpole Burial site was buried with the woman


Experts say minute examination of jewellery found at a burial site could "rewrite our understanding" of a county's history.

Items including a "unique" cross and 30 pendants and beads were discovered at a site near Harpole in south Northamptonshire.

Scientists say they now believe a body buried there 1300 years ago belonged to a young, high-status woman.

Further work will be done to find out more about the woman.

The burial site was discovered last year when archaeological work was being carried out on land near the village of Harpole, where a housing development was due to be built.

Among the finds was a large cross, which first emerged on X-ray images of a block of soil.

The piece bears a central cross, decorated by a smaller gold cross with five garnets - and smaller silver crosses at the end of each arm.

Experts from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) said the cross was similar to the pectoral crosses found in other high-status female burials.


For the rest see:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nort...e-67691018

[SeriesOfExtraordinaryEvents]

World’s oldest forts upend idea that farming alone led to complex societies

In remote Siberia, hunter-gatherers built complex defenses 8000 years ago

Talking about falling dogmas. This is perhaps the most striking example of the them all. Hunter-gatherer fishermen, without a hint of agriculture, build a stone fortress in middle of frozen taiga at NW Siberia. This place simply should not exist per prevailing dogma. I have to add that this exact place on the globe keeps bringing surprises, one after another. It's in this same place we find the first notes of Seima-Turbino metallurgy few thousend years later, yet another example of things that should not exist. Hunter-gatherers switching fishing to metallurgy. 

It also turns out that at the time of Amnya, they very likely independently came up with pottery. This could be one of the sources for "EHG pots"* at Eastern Europe. 

*Comb Ceramics

[Kaltmeister]

World’s oldest forts upend idea that farming alone led to complex societies

In remote Siberia, hunter-gatherers built complex defenses 8000 years ago

Talking about falling dogmas. This is perhaps the most striking example of the them all. Hunter-gatherer fishermen, without a hint of agriculture, build a stone fortress in middle of frozen taiga at NW Siberia. This place simply should not exist per prevailing dogma. I have to add that this exact place on the globe keeps bringing surprises, one after another. It's in this same place we find the first notes of Seima-Turbino metallurgy few thousend years later, yet another example of things that should not exist. Hunter-gatherers switching fishing to metallurgy. 

It also turns out that at the time of Amnya, they very likely independently came up with pottery. This could be one of the sources for "EHG pots"* at Eastern Europe. 

*Comb Ceramics

Don't worry - you are not the only one to realize this. 

There have been located and researched several palaeolothic/mesolithic settlements in the arctic regions, especially between Scandinavia and Sibiria. Here is an interesting book on the topic. I can't find the download link any more, but I have the pdf - if anyone is interested, contact me:

edit: This is a link to one of the articles (Greenland) with the contents of the book

https://www.academia.edu/34646929/First_...ronment_Ed

[JMcB]

Archaeologists Bewildered by Monumental Moat That Split Biblical Jerusalem in Two

Israeli archaeologists have found a huge ditch carved into the rock that may have split ancient Jerusalem in two 3,000 years ago, with the elites on one side and the rest on the other. Why is another question


Yuval Gadot at the bottom of the Jerusalem moat, rock-cut cliff on the leftCredit: Erik Marmor / Courtesy of the City of David



Earlier in 2023, Israeli archaeologists announced the discovery of two sets of channels cut into the bedrock of ancient Jerusalem more than 2,800 years ago.

The purpose of these installations remains unclear, though experts think they may be the relic of an ancient industrial facility to make some kind of liquid product, perhaps date honey.


But, as with many archaeological remains in Jerusalem, it is now clear that those strange installations were just a proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

That's because those channels were found at the bottom of a huge artificial depression. Carving that ditch into the bedrock, apparently, cut biblical Jerusalem in two, separating the acropolis – with the First Temple and the palace of the kings of Judah – from the rest of the city.

Its discoverers suspect the ditch was a massive defensive moat, and in any case, the find changes our picture of how Jerusalem looked in the First Temple period. Though when exactly and why this moat was dug remains a mystery.

The discovery also has implications for a broader enigma: the so-called "problem with Jerusalem," which is the growing debate over where this ancient city first emerged, and where exactly the "heart of the city" was located in the time of biblical kings like David and Solomon.

[…]

"In all our reconstructions of what Jerusalem looked like back then we just have a continuous urban landscape from the Temple Mount down to bottom of the City of David, but this discovery completely changes that picture," says IAA archaeologist Shalev. "Now there is a clear divide between the upper city – the sacred, royal and administrative city – and the lower city, and this element stood there in the open until the time of the Hasmoneans" in the second century B.C.E.

But why would the kings of Judah have a moat cutting their capital city in two? By that time the ditch may have played a double role, Gadot argues. It could have been a secondary defensive structure to fall back on in case the lower city was taken, but it mostly would have served to protect and symbolically separate the city's elites from the hoi polloi.

"Its role was to secure the elites, isolate them from the rest of the city, but also to symbolically mark that this is was a sacred precinct: the Temple, the palace were all isolated from the rest of the city," Gadot posits.


For the rest, see:

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2023...eeab320000

[JonikW]

"Czech archaeologists have announced a unique discovery. A team of experts from Brno have unearthed a bronze belt buckle from the early Middle Ages, depicting a snake devouring a frog-like creature. The find could shed more light on people’s spiritual life in the pre-Christian era, of which we know very little.'

Based on the similarities with Germanic motifs that are mentioned, I'm not convinced this is a "frog-like creature." I'd say it's a human or deity that's depicted, and I'm pretty sure my eyes would be bulging too if I ever found myself in that unfortunate predicament.

[ph2ter]

"Czech archaeologists have announced a unique discovery. A team of experts from Brno have unearthed a bronze belt buckle from the early Middle Ages, depicting a snake devouring a frog-like creature. The find could shed more light on people’s spiritual life in the pre-Christian era, of which we know very little.'

Based on the similarities with Germanic motifs that are mentioned, I'm not convinced this is a "frog-like creature." I'd say it's a human or deity that's depicted, and I'm pretty sure my eyes would be bulging too if I ever found myself in that unfortunate predicament.

This frog-snake depiction has something with the transformation of infertile winter goddess into a fertile spring goddess-princess.
It is only one segment of an annual cycle of the goddess of fertility. It can be fitted into the Slavic pre-Christian concepts.

We all know the story how a frog was converted into a princess after being kissed by her male counterpart.

[Orentil]

In Germany it is the other way round. A princess is kissing a frog who turns into a prince (Froschkönig). But not sure if this is based on Slavic or Germanic mythology or simply fairy tale.

[ph2ter]

In Germany it is the other way round. A princess is kissing a frog who turns into a prince (Froschkönig). But not sure if this is based on Slavic or Germanic mythology or simply fairy tale.

A snake can symbolise phallus and the depicted frog in Slavic case is certainly a female .

[Alain]

A Neolithic female figure in the sights


https://www.wissenschaft.de/geschichte-a...im-visier/

[JonikW]

In Germany it is the other way round. A princess is kissing a frog who turns into a prince (Froschkönig). But not sure if this is based on Slavic or Germanic mythology or simply fairy tale.

A snake can symbolise phallus and the depicted frog in Slavic case is certainly a female .

They do say unequivocally though that this is an Avar find in a Slavic context: "It was a very interesting discovery for us because we came across this Avar belt while excavating a settlement of early Slavs." 

I'm interested in the frog idea you mentioned ph2ter (although as I said I'm sceptical in the case of this buckle). But if you find any Slavic frog-like images at any point please feel free to post them on the Germanic artefacts thread. There was so much cross-influence in these cultures that it will still be relevant. It's obviously a massively interesting subject.

[ph2ter]

In Germany it is the other way round. A princess is kissing a frog who turns into a prince (Froschkönig). But not sure if this is based on Slavic or Germanic mythology or simply fairy tale.

A snake can symbolise phallus and the depicted frog in Slavic case is certainly a female .

They do say unequivocally though that this is an Avar find in a Slavic context: "It was a very interesting discovery for us because we came across this Avar belt while excavating a settlement of early Slavs." 

I'm interested in the frog idea you mentioned ph2ter (although as I said I'm sceptical in the case of this buckle). But if you find any Slavic frog-like images at any point please feel free to post them on the Germanic artefacts thread. There was so much cross-influence in these cultures that it will still be relevant. It's obviously a massively interesting subject.

In Eastern Europe the frog is always a female.
Like in this Russian tale (it is known also among other western and eastern Slavs):

"In the Russian versions of the story, Prince Ivan and his two older brothers shoot arrows in different directions to find brides... Ivan's arrow lands in the mouth of a frog in a swamp, who turns into a princess at night. The Frog Princess, named Vasilisa the Wise, is a beautiful, intelligent, friendly, skilled young woman, who was forced to spend three years in a frog's skin for disobeying Koschei."

The arrows symbolise a male principle.

There is a story known in my area in which a frog is replaced by a snake:
"The story says that a soldier was going to Zagreb through this forest and a snake came to him on his knee. She had a crown and raised her head for a kiss. She was cursed because her father (the king of the snakes) was evil. When someone kisses her, her skin falls off and she becomes a princess".

I don't know for any Slavic frog images, but maybe I will find something in literature.

[Alain]

The evil Koschtschei (Old Bone) is a well-known figure from Slavic myths and fairy tales such as Baba Yaga, who kidnapped a young girl and in general Slavic myths have a lot to do with forests and waters and the well-known and infamous werewolves also have their origins in Central-Eastern Europe

I wanted to add that Eastern Europe is home to a fascinating mix of myths, fairy tales and legends, reflecting both its lush nature and its rich heritage of beliefs from animist religions to Christianity. and from the Czech Republic in the west to Russia in the east extends a region with very different peoples and traditions. Many people in the western part also have Celtic roots, but the predominant mythology there is also that of the Slavs, the early mythology of the Slavs stood for the concepts of Good and evil in the center and the role of the ancestors who lived in another world and in general the deities of the Slavs were connected with elements of nature such as the sky and light god “Svarog”. But this is also partly known from other cultures!

[JMcB]

Arkeonews

14 December 2023

Luxurious Ancient Roman Home With Magnificent Mosaic Wall uncovered between the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill



Archaeologists have uncovered a luxurious Roman home between Rome’s Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, boasting an “unparalleled” mosaic featuring shells, marble, and precious glass.

The discovery was unveiled by the Italian Culture Ministry on Tuesday. Officials said that the ancient structure, which dates to the late Republican age, was built in at least three phases between the second half of the second century BC and the end of the first century BC.

The Domus is located in the area of the so-called Horrea Agrippiana warehouse complex along the Vicus Tuscus, a trading street that linked the Roman Forum to the river port on the Tiber.

Distributed around an atrium/garden, the domus features the specus aestivus as its main room, a banquet hall imitating a cave used during the summer season. Originally, it was adorned with spectacular water displays through lead pipes embedded in decorated walls.

What makes this discovery unique is the discovery of an extraordinary mosaic wall covering called “rustic” in this room, which is unparalleled due to the complexity of the depicted scenes and chronology.

The mosaic, crafted with sea-shells, Egyptian blue tesserae, precious glass, marble fragments, and colored stones, suggests the domus owner was a high-status nobleman or soldier, reports The Heritage Daily.

[…]

Archaeologists also discovered “of the highest quality” white stucco carvings in an adjacent reception room, featuring detailed architectural renderings and vague “figures.”


For the rest, see:

https://arkeonews.net/luxurious-ancient-...tine-hill/

[Alain]

Where the Thuringians get their name from
by Dr. Daniel Niemetz
December 3, 2023, 5:00 a.m

https://www.mdr.de/geschichte/weitere-ep...0~amp.html

[Orentil]

Where the Thuringians get their name from
by Dr. Daniel Niemetz
December 3, 2023, 5:00 a.m

https://www.mdr.de/geschichte/weitere-ep...0~amp.html

It would be really time for a big aDNA study on Thuringians, there should be enough material available. But strangely I see nothing in the pipeline even with the MPI being located there.
By the way, I would doubt the Eastern borders of Thuringia shown on the map, esp. the Elbe border. If I see it correctly there should be no Slavs in Bohemia in 526. The region east of the Elbe was already mainly depopulated but I would assume that till the incursions of the Avars in 562/68 the region at least till the Oder was under Thuringian influence.