Archaeology // Current

Archeologists say they found 12,000-year-old witch doctor skeleton

Apparently archaeologists are working hard lately..

DailyMenendez
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Ancient grave reveals 'Flintstone' nuclear family

A Stone Age massacre has provided evidence of the earliest known nuclear family. The evidence also suggests that, just like today,... more

bonemachine
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77-million-year-old dinosaur nest ... wow!

Third pick for Friday - this nest offers a look into bird evolution. Awesome!

DailyMenendez
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4,300-year-old pyramid discovered in Egypt

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a pyramid buried in the desert and thought to belong to the mother of a pharaoh who ruled... more

hsaleem
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Israeli archaeologists discovered a 2000-year-old gold earring

Israeli archaeologists have discovered a 2000-year-old gold earring beneath a parking lot next to the walls of Jerusalem's... more

goldenways
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4,300-year-old pyramid discovered in Egypt

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a pyramid buried in the desert and thought to belong to the mother of a pharaoh who ruled... more

goldenways
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Shipwreck Discoveries are Among Oldest Ever.

The Black Sea's graveyard of ships contains some of the oldest shipwrecks ever found. The 10th century wrecks are remarkably... more

donnyin3d
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New Biblical Evidence

"What may be the oldest known Hebrew text, found on a hilltop above the valley where David is said to have battled Goliath,... more

ashcatash
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Raising Alexandria

From the famed lighthouse to Cleopatra's palace,archaeologists are discovering startling ruins in the Bay of Alexandria.

donnyin3d
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Female Shaman's Grave Found in Israel

The graves of people who died 12,000 ago rarely contain a woman’s skeleton pinned down in an unusual position by large... more

GeoffNI
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Temple of Artemis to be restored in Turkey

The Temple of Artemis was once one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The rebuilding is expected to cost around $150 million and... more

sgwhites
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Greek dig unearths Neolithic household gear

A 6,000 year-old set of household gear, including crockery and two wood-fired ovens, has been found in the buried ruins of a... more

goldenways
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African religious artifacts found under street.

Under Maryland Street, Ties to African Past: Over the years of exploring the old houses and streets of Annapolis, Md., archaeologists have uncovered a trove of artifacts of early American slave culture. Among them are humble remains connected with religious practices, which bear the stamp of the slaves’ West African heritage.

Early in the 18th century, as they were being baptized, African-Americans clung to “spirit practices” in rituals of healing and the invocation of ancestral and supernatural powers. Sometimes called black magic, these occult rites would persist in America in modified form, later, as voodoo and hoodoo.

University of Maryland archaeologists have discovered in Annapolis what they say is one of the earliest examples of traditional African religious artifacts in North America. It is a clay “bundle,” roughly the size and shape of a football, filled with about 300 pieces of metal and a stone axe, whose blade sticks out of the clay, pointing skyward.

The bundle, found in April and dated to 1700, appears to be a direct transplant of African religion into what is now the United States, said Mark P. Leone, a professor of anthropology at Maryland who directed the excavations. The materials and construction, he said, differed from the hoodoo caches his teams had previously found in Annapolis.

“The bundle is African in design, not African-American,” Dr. Leone said in an announcement of the discovery. “The people who made this used local materials. But their knowledge of the charms and the spirit world probably came with them directly from Africa.”

In interviews last week, Dr. Leone and scholars of West African culture said they could not yet determine the bundle’s association with a specific religion or ethnic group.

Frederick Lamp, curator of African art at the Yale University Art Gallery, who was not involved in the discovery, said there was “no reason to doubt” the bundle’s direct link to the long tradition of West African religious practices. “But bundles filled with materials seen to have extraordinary spiritual power were used by many different cultures in Africa,” he said.

Dr. Lamp noted that X-rays of the bundle’s contents revealed an abundance of lead shot, iron nails and copper pins. “Some of the pins were bent, indicating this was a purposeful part of a ritual,” he said.

Metal worked in fire was widely seen as having special power, Dr. Lamp added, “and combining these materials in compacted clay was believed to increase the power of these objects.” The practice, he said, is well documented to this day among the Mande groups, principally in what are now Sierra Leone, Guinea and Mali, and the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin.

Nor should the Kongo people be ruled out as a source of these religious practices, scholars said. This culture, living in lands around the Congo River and in Angola and Cabinda, was a major source of African-American slaves. Kongo bundles contain stones, shells and other items that are supposed to hold the spirits of the dead for the use of the living in a custom that underlies hoodoo.

The bundle’s most striking component, the stone axe, was especially intriguing. Dr. Lamp said this brought to mind the Yoruba and the Fon people of Benin, who considered the axe blade a symbol of Shango, their god of thunder and lightning.

Matthew D. Cochran, a doctoral student in anthropology at University College London, who uncovered the bundle, said it would probably prove to be associated with Yoruba practices related to Shango.

************CONTINUESUnder Maryland Street, Ties to African Past: Over the years of exploring the old houses and streets of Annapolis, Md.,... more

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28 days ago

VIDEO: "Gladiator" Tomb Found

Archaeologists in Rome have discovered what's believed to be the tomb of a wealthy man on whom the main character of the... more

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1 month ago

Tomb of the real 'Gladiator' discovered in Italy

Italian archaeologists have discovered the tomb of the Ancient Roman hero who inspired Russell Crowe’s character in the film Gladiator.

Daniela Rossi, a Rome archaeologist, said that the discovery of the marble tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus, which has an inscription bearing his name, was “the most important Ancient Roman monument to come to light for 20 or 30 years”.

The tomb was found when archaeologists were asked to investigate ruins uncovered during building work on the banks of the Tiber at Saxa Rubra, on the Via Flaminia, north of Rome.

Cristiano Ranieri, who led the archaeological team at the site, said that the tomb had long ago collapsed into the mud but its columns, roof and decorations were intact. Some parts of the tomb had slipped into the river but had been recovered.

Angelo Bottini, Superintendent of Archaeology in Rome, said the tomb was “a monument of great beauty”.

Marcus Nonius Macrinus, born in Brescia, northern Italy, was a general and consul who led military campaigns for Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor in 161-180AD. He became part of the emperor’s inner circle and one of his favourites, serving as proconsul in Asia. His patrician villa at Toscolano Maderno on Lake Garda has been identified and partially excavated.

In Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, he became Maximus Decimus Meridius, also portrayed as the emperor’s favourite general. The screen-writers added a twist of their own, however: after the murder of Marcus Aurelius by his ambitious son Commodus (a fictional event) the general falls from grace and ends up in exile in North Africa.

He later returns to Rome as a hardened gladiator to take revenge for the murder of his family and the emperor. Russell Crowe won an Oscar for the role.

The archaeological find was presented yesterday at the Culture Ministry by Professor Bottini with new excavations on the Palatine Hill and the discovery of an imperial villa on the Via Aurelia and a necropolis adjoining the Stadio Flaminio rugby ground. There are thought to be plans to reconstruct the tomb as the centerpiece of a “Via Flaminia Archaeological Park”, which would also include the House of Empress Livia, the wife of Emperor Augustus, near by at Prima Porta.

The character of Maximus also drew on accounts by Roman historians of a wrestler named Narcissus, who murdered the Emperor Commodus by strangling him, and the life of Spartacus, the leader of a revolt by slaves and gladiators in the 1st century BC.

Gladiators were professional fighters who entertained the public by fighting wild animals and each other, often to the death. The most celebrated Rome arena, the Colosseum, built by the Emperor Vespasian, was also flooded for staging naval battles. The first recorded Roman gladiatorial combat took place in the 3rd century BC, using prisoners of war. Italian archaeologists have discovered the tomb of the Ancient Roman hero who inspired Russell Crowe’s character in the film... more