76945-costume-research—and-more:
A pair of sharp pointed sandals, upwards and with fastening strips. Probably coming from a tomb. The Egyptians used sandals in special occasions, by high dignitaries and priests during religious ceremonies, as documented in several relieves that have reached us.
76945-costume-research—and-more:
These remarkably well preserved floral collars, from the embalming cache of Tutankhamun, illustrates how the broad collars so frequently depicted in Egyptian tomb paintings were made. Alternating rows of flower petals and blossoms, leaves, berries, and blue faience beads were sewn to a papyrus backing, and linen ties secured the collar around the wearer’s neck. Some of the flora used in the Tutankhamun collars have been identified as olive leaves, cornflowers, and poppies. Several collars in the cache were bound around the edge with red cloth, and the resulting combination of red, blue, black, and green must have been very colorful and similar to the polychrome decoration on some of the terracotta vessels in the same deposit
at the Metmuseum
Gold Finger Rings w/ Swivelling Bezels (12th-22nd Dynasty, 1820-924 BCE)
(a) Rectangular blue glass bezel of Tuthmosis III as a sphinx; the verso has the royal Golden Horus name
(b) Rectangular green glazed steatite bezel depicting a royal sphinx; on the verso is ‘son of Amun’
(c) Green glazed composition scarab naming Hatshepsut
(d) Green glazed steatite scarab naming Sheshonq I
(e) Green jasper scarab inscribed with good luck symbols
(f) Plain amethyst scarab
(g) Plain obsidian scarab
(h) Lapis Lazuli scarab naming Hatshepsut
Athgreany Stone Circle (Piper’s Stones)
The legend of the Piper’s Stones:
There was a time in Ireland when the government was repressive; groups were not permitted to congregate and dancing wasn’t permitted. A man could be hung for being out of their house after curfew. But the Irish young people, rebels at heart, met to dance at lonely crossroads. They posted lookouts for any approaching soldiers and danced anyway.
On a hill outside of the village, with pipers and harpists in tow, the young people danced. Once they started to dance they could not stop. On and on they danced, the pipers played faster and faster until they collapsed to the ground in exhaustion where they turned into stone as punishment for dancing on Sunday.
The Athgreany Stone Circle is a Bronze Age National Monument. It has 16 granite boulders, of which only five are still in their original positions. There may have originally been 29 stones. The entrance to the circle is marked by a pair of stones at the north-east which face an outlying boulder 40m to the north-east called the “Piper”. The site has not been archaeologically investigated so its exact construction date is unknown but similar examples excavated elsewhere in Ireland have tended to date to the later part of the Bronze Age.
Ancient Ore Washerie near the legendary Mines of Laurium, Greece
An ore washerie was used for separating the silver out of smelted lead ore. The process is called cupellation. Water would be sluiced around in buckets and the little teeth like impressions would catch the waste and the precious metals would be easier to extract from the top.
Deposits of metal ore are common in Greece. Of these, the best known are the silver mines of Laurium. These mines contributed to the development of Athens in the 5th century BCE, when the Athenians learned to prospect, treat, and refine the ore.
Clonmacnoise Castle by Tim Drivas on Flickr.
During the period of 1170-1220 the Anglo-Normans began the colonisation of Ireland, building Motte and Bailey Castles throughout the island. The wooden castle that stood on the top of the motte at Clonmacnoise was destroyed by fire and later in 1214 the Justiciar of Ireland, Henry of London, built a stone castle on the motte. This was to guard the bridge across the River Shannon.
The castle was destroyed during the Gaelic Resurgence in the late 13th to early 14th century. Originally it had three stories but very little remains of the castle today. The ruins are very dangerous, delicately balanced in a bizarre but fascinating position on the edge of the mound.
A 2,500-year-old statue of a woman from the late Hellenistic period has been unearthed during the excavations at the Metropolis ancient city in İzmir’s Torbalı district.
According to a written statement made made by the Sabancı Foundation, new artifacts are being unearthed during the excavation of the ancient city, which has been ongoing for 22 years as part of a collaboration between the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Trakya University, the Metropolis Association, the Torbalı Municipality and sponsored by the Sabancı Foundation.
The head of the excavations, Trakya University Archaeology Department Associate Professor Serdar Aynek, said the headless, dressed, female statue was found buried in the city wall and that the statue reflected the richness and magnificence of the late Hellenistic period in its 2-meter length.
76945-costume-research—and-more:
Etruscan (675-650 BCE). Pair of gold bracelets with granulation and embossed panels. The themes of the figured panels derive from Phoenician motifs.
Svante Pääbo: DNA clues to our inner neanderthal
Sharing the results of a massive, worldwide study, geneticist Svante Pääbo shows the DNA proof that early humans mated with Neanderthals after we moved out of Africa. (Yes, many of us have Neanderthal DNA.) He also shows how a tiny bone from a baby finger was enough to identify a whole new humanoid species.
Svante Pääbo explores human genetic evolution by analyzing DNA extracted from ancient sources, including mummies, an Ice Age hunter and the bone fragments of Neanderthals.
Italian archaeologists say they have discovered a cemetery that reveals complex funeral rites dating back more than 3,000 years in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, which was recently controlled by the Taliban.
The tombs point to the culture that predates the Buddhist Gandhara civilization that took hold in northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan from the first millennium BCE to the sixth century AD. The presence of a few iron fragments might be amongst the most ancient traces of this metal in the subcontinent.
Dr. Trinh Nang Chung, from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology, said Phia Vai cave in Coc Ngan village, Xuan Tan commune, Na Hang district was discovered based on the legend about the Phia Vai “mountain ghosts.” Indigenous people said that this sacred cave has ghosts. There have been many local people who got lost in the cave and then became mad
Because of this legend, local people considered the cave as a sacred and inviolable place. This allows the cave to be maintained intact until today.
It took a long time to convince the local authorities to help Chung and his colleagues to get into the cave. Archaeologists bought sticky rice, chicken and offerings and invited a shaman to maker rituals before the adventure to assure locals. It was also very hard for them to hire local workers for digging archaeological sites.
The hypocaust heating system of Roman baths that date back to fourth century, B.C.E. If you’re ever in Paris and visit the Notre Dame cathedral, a less notice site is the Crypte Archeologique - an underground site right in front of the cathedral in Notre Dame square. The first time I was in Paris, I walked right by it. Thankfully, I got a chance to go back to Paris the next year and dragged my whole family to this site.
The buildings and streets are so beautifully preserved here and walking through the Crypte Archeologique is really like a trip back through time. Seriously. Visit it.
Anthropomorphic Stele. Sandstone, 4th millennium BCE.
El-Maakir-Qaryat al-Kaafa, near Ha’il, Saudi Arabia.
National Museum, Riyadh
Greek Police Bust Open Olympia Museum Heist
Police in Greece announced the arrest of three people involved in a high-profile robbery at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from Athens.
Local authorities have charged that the three suspects stole 77 artifacts related to the history of the Olympic Games from the museum last February.
Police organized a sting in which they posed as potential buyers of artifacts, which had ended up on the black market, the correspondent reported.
http://www.gotland-fieldschool.com/research-and-excavations.html
Archaeology field school in Gotland, Sweden this summer? Mmmyes!
100 Years Later, Nefertiti Bust Still a Source of Controversy
A German archeologist, Ludwig Borchard, unearthed a 3,300-year-old painted stone bust of Nefertiti in southern Egypt 100 years ago on 6 Dec and carried it off to Germany. The centenary will turn up the volume on Egypt’s demands for its return, and for the repatriation of other priceless antiquities discovered by foreign collectors and shipped out of the country.
Before he was fired by Egypt’s new government, Egyptian antiquities minister Zahi Hawass campaigned unsuccessfully for the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum and for the bust of Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaton, from Berlin’s Neues Museum. Balking museum directors argue that the treasures are safer where they are, an argument supported by the looting of antiquities during Egypt’s recent turmoil.
A team of archaeologists using ground penetrating radar have found an underground chamber that could finally answer some of the mysteries of Pumapunku.
Did ancient aliens or ancient humans build Pumapunku? What exactly was the building’s purpose? What did the building look like and how did it end up destroyed? Where did the knowledge and skill to build and carve the blocks come from? It is these questions among many others that archaeologists have not been able to answer regarding the site that leaves us with a huge mystery. But a new discovery could be about to change all of that …..
After nearly a century away, Harvard archaeology has returned to Iraq.
Jason Ur, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, earlier this year launched a five-year archaeological project—the first such Harvard-led endeavor in the war-torn nation since the early 1930s—
square-kilometer area around Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, for signs of ancient cities and towns, canals, and roads.
Already, Ur said, the effort is paying massive dividends—with some 1,200 potential sites identified in just a few months, and potentially thousands more in the coming years.
“What we’re finding is that this is, hands down, the richest archaeological landscape in the Middle East,” Ur said.
