omgthatartifact:

Shield, Sulka, early 20th century, The British Museum

“The Sulka people of East New Britain made wooden war shields, used to parry the blows from spears. This is a typical example, with a raised central boss and overlaid crossed cane strips. The internal hand grip at the back is carved by hollowing out the central area. The cane plaiting around the edge of the shield provides strength. There is a projectile point tip, probably from a spear, embedded inside the hand grip.

The shield is decorated on both the front and back with red, black and white pigments. The design has been interpreted as a face which may represent the face of a spirit who protected the user of the shield.

The Sulka stopped making shields for use in war in the early twentieth century due to the influence of German missionaries. Today brightly painted shields decorated with feathers are made for use in dances.”

arconnection:

Mount Nermut, a huge acropolis in Turkey, where King Antiochus I is buried, represents a graveyard for the “beheaded gods.” Antiochus originally meant for the area to be a place of worship, combining different gods fro different theologies. However, sometime in history, the statues of these many gods were destroyed, their heads roughly removed. The reason is lost to history. 

centuriespast:

UNKNOWN MASTER, Catalan
Tomb of Don Sancho Saiz de Carillo (detail)
c. 1300
Tempera on wood, 51 x 86 cm
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

omgthatartifact:

Dagger

China, 1300-1200 BCE

The Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art

“Tiny turquoise mosaics define the coiled dragons, with beaked head, three-clawed paw, and spiraling tail, on the projecting tang of this dagger-axe. X-radiographs of this object reveals it was assembled from different pieces that might not have belonged together originally and were pinned and soldered in place in modern times. These repairs explain the disorderly areas of turquoise inlay.”

archaeologicalnews:

“In 2004, Vietnam’s My Son Sanctuary — imperiled at the time by Vietnam War damage, illegal looting, deterioration from exposure, overall decay, and vegetation overgrowth — became the focus of a GHF [Global Heritage Fund] project. After successful efforts to support urgently needed stabilization, archaeological documentation, planning, site conservation and training, My Son was declared a “Completed Project” in 2006.

But no cultural heritage site, no matter how well preserved or protected, is ever completely free from threats. At My Son, in particular, skyrocketing tourism as a result of increased popularity and accessibility has put pressure on the ancient temples, especially during peak visiting times.”

Read More Here: http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/march-2012/article/threatened-ancient-monumental-site-in-viet-nam-receives-needed-attention

archaeologicalnews:

In the Parque del Oeste in Madrid tourists can visit the Temple of Debod, which originally stood on land that was flooded after the building of the Aswan High Dam

Mohammed Elrazzaz – Barcelona, Spain, Monday 30 Apr 2012

“It’s a sunny day in Madrid. In the Parque del Oeste (Western Park), a couple of teachers herd a group of excited young school kids dressed as Pharaohs into the long queue to enter Debod, one of three Pharaonic temples in Europe.

A visit to this ancient Egyptian site, reassembled in aEuropean city, raises questions about whether sacredness is site-specific. Is it lost when the geo-cultural context is altered?

The temple of Debod may provide an answer. The setting is a perfect one from an aesthetic viewpoint: the temple dominates a beautiful park, surrounded by an artificial pond, in an attempt to recreate the original context.

A closer look reveals that it is not thatperfect from a conservation perspective, because – unlike other Pharaonic temples outside Egypt - Debod is set in the open, subject to Madrid’s polluted air and extreme weather conditions.

Why Madrid then? What brought the temple to Spain in the first place? The answer takes us back to the Egypt of the 1960s, and to the epic UNESCO campaign to save the monuments of Nubia from being lost forever.

The world still remembers the incredible effort involved in dismantling and reassembling the temples of Abu Simbel and Philae (among others) through an international campaign coordinated by UNESCO and supported by several donor states.

The campaign came in response to the threat posed by the construction of the High Dam, in an attempt to save this unique heritage from being submerged once and for all by the resulting artificial lake.

A grateful Egyptian government paid back generously, with Nasser donating four entire temples to four of the donor states. Holland received the Temple of Taffah (Leiden), the US got the Temple of Dendur (New York) and Italy the Temple of Ellesyia (Turin). “

Read More Here: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/40533/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Debod-The-pharaonic-temple-in-Madrid.aspx

archaeologicalnews:

Rare finds have prompted archaeologists to rewrite the history of an ancient north Pembrokeshire stone.

The Trefael Stone, a scheduled ancient monument in a Nevern field, was originally thought to be an ancient standing stone, but is actually the capstone of a 5,500-year-old tomb, according to  new research from a Bristol University archaeologist.

Dr George Nash and colleagues’ excavations at the site indicate that the 1.2m high stone once covered a small burial chamber, probably a portal dolmen, Wales’ earliest Neolithic burial-ritual monument type.

Read More Here: http://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/news/9675561.Stone_me__Archaeologists__new_theory_on_ancient_north_Pembrokeshire_site/r/?ref=rss

archaeologicalnews:

A rare pottery jug that dates back to the pre-Islamic era was found recently in the Al Ahsa municipality. This was the first time that a relic of such historic importance was located in the Al Ahsa municipality.

Chance alone had led citizen Omar Ba Obaid to find this relic, while he was digging the foundation of his house in the village of Al Taraf, east of Al Ahsa. He found it stuck to the base of the wall. He said that, he then contacted his relative, who in turn notified the Antiquities Office.

Omar Ba Obaid commented that his action was based on his love and sense of responsibility towards his homeland, and his belief that this relic should be saved in its right place - the museum, in order to be seen by all people.

Read More Here: http://www.eturbonews.com/29033/pottery-jug-found-dating-back-pre-islamic-era

archaeologicalnews:

A group of archaeological experts from Italy will conduct a series of studies in the ancient city of Estakhr, said director of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research (ICAR) Mahmoud Mir-Eskandari.

Read More Here: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/238726.html

askaworld:

I’m reading THE EVOLUTION OF AN ENGLISH TOWN. It takes the settlement of Pickering in Yorkshire, to WAY back in the day. Lots of well drawn illustrations. And interesting too. HERE.

bonedust:

brooklynmutt:

Scientists believe that this is the animal from which everything else evolved. The first multicellular being that spawned every living being in this world through billions of mutations, from fish to amphibians to reptiles to birds to mammals to you. It’s an amazing discovery. Its name is Otavia antiqua, and it is the oldest animal ever discovered: 760 million years old. Scientists claim that it used to chill out in calm, nice, shallow waters, chewing on algae and bacteria through its pores and into its little tube body.

Read: You Come From This Thing: The Oldest Animal Ever Discovered - Gizmodo 

allmesopotamia:

“Who Invented the Umbrella?

The long history of the umbrella makes it impossible to determine who invented it first. But there is strong evidence indicating the device has been used by many ancient cultures and civilizations.

Ancient Middle East

The word parasol was synonymous with umbrella during its early history. Archaeologists have discovered bas relief in Nineveh showing he parasol. It is held by a servant over the head of the king to protect him from the sun’s heat. “

expose-the-light:

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Time

1  “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so,” joked Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Scientists aren’t laughing, though. Some speculative new physics theories suggest that time emerges from a more fundamental—and timeless—reality.

2  Try explaining that when you get to work late. The average U.S. city commuter loses 38 hours a year to traffic delays.

3  Wonder why you have to set your clock ahead in March? Daylight Saving Time began as a joke by Benjamin Franklin, who proposed waking people earlier on bright summer mornings so they might work more during the day and thus save candles. It was introduced in the U.K. in 1917 and then spread around the world.

4  Green days. The Department of Energy estimates that electricity demand drops by 0.5 percent during Daylight Saving Time, saving the equivalent of nearly 3 million barrels of oil.

5  By observing how quickly bank tellers made change, pedestrians walked, and postal clerks spoke, psychologists determined that the three fastest-paced U.S. cities are Boston, Buffalo, and New York.

6  The three slowest? Shreveport, Sacramento, and L.A.

7  One second used to be defined as 1/86,400 the length of a day. However, Earth’s rotation isn’t perfectly reliable. Tidal friction from the sun and moon slows our planet and increases the length of a day by 3 milli­seconds per century.

8  This means that in the time of the dinosaurs, the day was just 23 hours long.

9  Weather also changes the day. During El Niño events, strong winds can slow Earth’s rotation by a fraction of a milli­second every 24 hours.

10  Modern technology can do better. In 1972 a network of atomic clocks in more than 50 countries was made the final authority on time, so accurate that it takes 31.7 million years to lose about one second.

11  To keep this time in sync with Earth’s slowing rotation, a “leap second” must be added every few years, most recently this past New Year’s Eve.

12  The world’s most accurate clock, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado, measures vibrations of a single atom of mercury. In a billion years it will not lose one second.

13  Until the 1800s, every village lived in its own little time zone, with clocks synchronized to the local solar noon.

14  This caused havoc with the advent of trains and timetables. For a while watches were made that could tell both local time and “railway time.”

15  On November 18, 1883, American railway companies forced the national adoption of standardized time zones.

16  Thinking about how railway time required clocks in different places to be synchronized may have inspiredEinstein to develop his theory of relativity, which unifies space and time.

17  Einstein showed that gravity makes time run more slowly. Thus airplane passengers, flying where Earth’s pull is weaker, age a few extra nano­seconds each flight.

18  According to quantum theory, the shortest moment of time that can exist is known as Planck time, or 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 second.

19  Time has not been around forever. Most scientists believe it was created along with the rest of the universe in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

20  There may be an end of time. Three Spanish scientists posit that the observed acceleration of the expanding cosmos is an illusion caused by the slowing of time. According to their math, time may eventually stop, at which point everything will come to a standstill.

TEMPE (April 30, 2012) -

“The popular perception of archaeology is a team of dusty individuals in wide-brimmed hats unearthing treasures from a pharaoh’s tomb or an ancient collection of Native American artifacts.

Archaeology is that, but it is also a social science that utilizes information from other disciplines to inform and enhance archaeological data and to provide input to other sciences. Arizona State University Anthropology Professor Michael Smith explores the broadened scope of archaeology in the paper “Archaeology as a Social Science” published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gary M. Feinman of The Field Museum in Chicago, Robert D. Drennan of University of Pittsburgh, Timothy Earle of Northwestern University and Ian Morris of Stanford University are co-authors of the paper.

“A lot of people’s perceptions are based on classical archaeology (such as the study of ancient Greece or Rome), or on the latest tomb discovered or the biggest palace,” says Smith, of ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change. “Viewing archaeology as a social science advances how we interpret sites and how we do research.”

Archaeology has greatly advanced during recent years. The discipline has expanded beyond anthropology, which studies the societies and cultures of the world, to include data and perspectives from other social sciences such as sociology.

“Looking at sociology and disciplines such as political science gives us more to draw from,” Smith said.

And archaeologists are able to reach beyond the time of written records to provide data that can be utilized in other sciences. For example, data on patterns of inequality and social stratification among ancient peoples can be utilized by sociologists.

Archaeologists also offer evidence that at times contradicts commonly held views of societies, for example, that of political scientists who may believe that life is chaotic outside of a state system with rulers and laws. This belief doesn’t hold up when one examines the lives of Native American societies such as the Hohokam that lived peacefully in tribal settlements, Smith says.

Archaeology provides a full range of the human experience, including societies that are unlike any that exist in modern times. It provides records from all levels of society, including peasants and slaves, who often are left out of historical accounts, the archaeologists write in the paper.

Archaeological findings also provide a long-term perspective on change, documenting the origins of agriculture, the Urban Revolution, and other transformational social changes. Indeed, archaeology is crucial to a renewed interest in what is now called “Deep History.”

Click through to read more!

mzbonez:

A complete Cranium

Medieval child, est. 4 - 6yrs.

Poulton, Cheshire (UK) - Summer 2010

http://www.poultonproject.org/index.shtml

archaeologicalnews:

Buffalo, N.Y. (WKBW) -

“Goodwill Industries of Western New York receives about 50,000 pounds in donations per day…and sometimes they find something a little extra special.

“This is a vase we found in our warehouse,” Dan Victori with Goodwill Industries of Western New York said.

It’s not just any old flowering pot.

“The vase could be anywhere from 1,000 to 1500 years old. A note inside the vase said it was found at the Spiro Mounds in 1970. We did research to discover that was an old Indian burial grounds,” Victori said.

The vase came all the way from Oklahoma. Victori contacted the Oklahoma government, who directed him to officials with the Caddo Indian Nation. They then claimed the vase.

Victori said according to the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, it is illegal for an organization like Goodwill to sell the vase, or other items belonging to any Native American group.

“We are going to donate that vase to their museum in Oklahoma,” Victori said.

This is not the first time Goodwill Industries has found some unique items. Victori said with all the donations that come in, there are bound to be some interesting discoveries.

“We did find some expensive paintings from a local artist a while back. A book by Elbert Einstein written in German and an autographed copy of Mickey Mantel’s book,” Victori said, were just some of the items they have found.

The organization was able to sell those items at ShopGoodwill.com for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. As for the vase, it will go back to its rightful owners, the Caddo Nation. They will then decipher what it was used for and the exact age of the artifact.

“In turn they are going to give us a plaque, that will be displayed proudly, thanking Goodwill Industries of Western New York,” Victori said.”

Source & Video Here: http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/Vase-149668485.html

Chinese scientists have proposed that an object collected 35 years ago from a tomb of the Western Han Dynasty in Fuyang city and called “lacquerware of unknown names” could be a gnomon with template.

The gnomon with template and a pair of overlapping lacquered disks from the tomb of Xiahou Zao, the 2nd Marquis of Ruyin of the Western Han dynasty (Yunli Shi)

____________________________________________________________________

In 1977, archaeologists unearthed a great number of precious relics, including the unknown object, in the tomb of Xiahou Zao (the 2nd century BCE), the 2nd Marquis of Ruyin of the Western Han dynasty. However, no one has been able to identify the object as well as to explain the possible  function of a pair of overlapping lacquered disks found in the same tomb.

Read More Here: http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/article00292.html

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) —

“A new look at a 425-year-old map has yielded a tantalizing clue about the fate of the Lost Colony, the settlers who disappeared from North Carolina’s Roanoke Island in the late 16th century.

Experts from the First Colony Foundation and the British Museum in London discussed their findings Thursday at a scholarly meeting on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their focus: the “Virginea Pars” map of Virginia and North Carolina created by explorer John White in the 1580s and owned by the British Museum since 1866.

“We believe that this evidence provides conclusive proof that they moved westward up the Albemarle Sound to the confluence of the Chowan and Roanoke rivers,” said James Horn, vice president of research and historical interpretation at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and author of a 2010 book about the Lost Colony.

“Their intention was to create a settlement. And this is what we believe we are looking at with this symbol — their clear intention, marked on the map …”

omgthatartifact:

Plaque Showing Artemis as Mistress of Animals

Greece, 660-620 BCE Located in The British Museum

“These seven gold plaques were designed to be strung together and worn along the top edge of a garment, with the rosettes pinned to it at the shoulders. The plaques are of sheet gold, and are identical in form, though the added decoration in filigree and granulation on the dress of the goddess and the bodies of the lions is different in each case, creating a rich effect. Pomegranates, which were symbols of fertility, hang from the bottom of each plaque.

Signs of wear and ancient repair show that this jewellery was worn in life, and not just deposited in the tomb. It therefore provides a rare and fascinating glimpse of the wealth and taste on display in Rhodes in the seventh century BC.

The winged goddess flanked by animals is an eastern motif that had been known in Greece during the Bronze Age. It became particularly popular during the Orientalizing period of the seventh century, which was characterized by influence from the east. The pose is called that of the ‘Mistress of Animals’, because the goddess shows her domination of wild nature by controlling or subduing the animals at each hand. In the Greek world the ‘Mistress of Animals’ was identified as the goddess Artemis.”