600 Years Old Sword and Equipment Found in Olsztyn
Aleksander Miedwiediew, a history buff, and detectorist discovered a bare sword, a sheath, and a knight’s belt with two knives attached, all of which most likely date from the Battle of Grunwald.
The objects were sent to regional authorities by the finder, who then passed them on to the Battle of Grunwald Museum.
The Marshal’s Office of Warmia and Masuria informed about the finding on Thursday, saying in a statement that “such findings happen once in decades”.
“It’s a phenomenal set of a sword, a sheath, a belt, and two knives. Taking into account that these artifacts date back somewhere between 14th and 15th centuries, and thus spent approx.
600 years below the earth, they have been preserved in an exceptionally good condition” – said the finder of the items Aleksander Miedwiediew. He added that in the times of their origin, such items had been extremely valuable – their price would match the price of a car today.
Miedwiediew found the items near Olsztyn. The exact location has not been revealed, as the director of the Battle of Grunwald Museum Szymon Drej said preparations for archeological exploration of that area were ongoing. “It’s puzzling that no one had taken hold of these items, very precious at the time. Maybe we will find the remains of a knight whom these things belonged to” – Drej added.
The finder of the weapons took them to the Marshal of Warmia and Masuria Marek Brzezin. The marshal passed the findings on to the Battle of Grunwald Museum where they will undergo conservation.
“The weapons will now undergo conservation and research process. We have a theory as to the sword’s medieval owner’s status, and we’re curious what’s underneath the layer of rust” – Drej added.
Other sensational discoveries have been made by Aleksander Miedwiediew.
During his annual archeological study at the Fields of Grunwald in the fall of 2020, he discovered two perfectly preserved battle axes. They were taken to the Grunwald Museum.
“Nikasitimos Was Here Mounting Timiona,” 2,500-year-old erotic graffiti on Astypalaia, Greece
In 2014, an archaeologist working on Astypalaia, a remote Greek island of the Dodecanese discovered one of the world’s oldest erotic graffiti a pair of phallus carvings dating from the 5th century BCE and a proclamation of sexual conquest from the 6th century BCE.
Archaeologists believe it is the oldest record of erotic graffiti ever found, with inscriptions and etchings documenting an ongoing sexual relationship between two men in Ancient Greece.
Professor Dr. Andreas Vlachopoulos discovered the two carved penises while he was giving his students a tour of the island. They were found etched into a limestone outcropping on the island’s windswept, rugged peninsula overlooking Vathay Bay.
In an interview with The Guardian, Professor Andreas Vlachopoulos, a specialist in prehistoric archaeology was surprised to find such sophisticated inscriptions in such an unlikely place. He called the inscriptions “monumental in scale”.
“They claimed their own space in large letters that not only expressed sexual desire but talked about the act of sex itself,” he told the Guardian. “And that is very, very rare.”
Even though sexual relations between men were not taboo in ancient Greece, these racy inscriptions and phalluses carved into Astypalaia’s rocky peninsula shed light on the very private lives of ancient Greece.
Carved on the side of the rock, archeologists found the name “DION” (ΔΙΩΝ). There was another inscription which was found 52 meters above sea level. “Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona” (Νικασίτιμος οἶφε Τιμίονα), noted the inscription.
In addition to illuminating the intimate lives of the ancients, the graffiti demonstrated the degree of literacy at a period before the construction of the Acropolis in Athens.
The graffiti is written in the Greek alphabet, which was first developed in the 8th century BCE. It is written in a style known as “rustic,” which was popular in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE.
The letters have been expertly carved into the rock, demonstrating that regular island residents were also trained in the art of writing, in addition to philosophers, academics, and historians.
Remarkably, the erotic rock carvings have survived despite remaining exposed all these millennia to weather and erosion from the sea.
Three Strange Skull Modifications Discovered in Viking Women
In recent years, research has provided evidence for permanent body modification in the Viking Age. The latest of these investigations focused on the discovery of three Viking Age women from the Baltic Sea island of Gotland who had their skulls lengthened.
This investigation sheds light on the fascinating tradition of body modification prevalent among the Norse and Vikings.
The study, authored by Matthias Toplak and Lukas Kerk and published in the journal Current Swedish Archaeology, has identified around 130 individuals, mainly men, with horizontal grooves carved into their teeth, with a surprising concentration on Gotland.
Although there have been many interpretations of these dental changes, ranging from slave markings to symbols of warrior elites, the researchers suggest that on closer examination they may have served as identity markers within a closed group of traders.
Artificial cranial modifications in the Viking Age are so far known from just three female individuals from Gotland. Dating back to the latter part of the eleventh century, all three women were interred in different locations across Gotland. Their skull modifications gave them a unique and remarkable appearance, elongating their heads.
Further details are discerned in two of the cases: one woman passed away between the ages of 25 and 30, while the other was between 55 and 60 years old.
These cranial alterations, unlike dental modifications, appear to be alien to Scandinavian Viking culture; cases dating from the 9th to the 11th century AD have been found in Eastern Europe, suggesting that they may have originated there.
Drawing of the grave of the female individual with an artificially modified skull in grave 192 from Havor, Hablingbo parish, Gotland, by Mirosław Kuźma/Matthias Toplak
The presence of these women with modified skulls raises questions about how Gotland society interacted with and reinterpreted this form of foreign identity, the practices of which are still unknown when they arrived in Scandinavia.
“It remains unclear how the custom of skull modification reached Gotland,” the authors write. ”Either the three females from Havor, Ire, and Kvie were born in south-eastern Europe, perhaps as children of Gotlandic or East Baltic traders, and their skulls were modified there in the first years of life. Or the modifications were made on Gotland or in the eastern Baltic, respectively, and thus represent a cultural adoption long unknown to the Scandinavian Viking Age.
A common background of the three females can be assumed due to the close chronological dating of the three burials, and especially due to the very similar execution of the skull modifications.”
These three women’s elaborately decorated tombs, which feature jewelry and other accessories typical of Gotland women’s clothing, suggest they were accepted and integrated into the local community.
While the religious affiliations of these women remain unknown, Toplak and Kerk propose they were laid to rest within a Christian framework.
High-status Macedonian tomb discovered in ancient Aegae, Central Macedonia
In the ancient city of Aegae (present-day Vergina) in Imathia, Central Macedonia, during the construction of the sewerage network, tomb of a local noble, buried with his wife, was discovered.
Aegae or Aigai was the original capital of the Macedonians, an ancient kingdom in Emathia in northern Greece. In antiquity, the city remained the burial place of the royal family after the capital was transferred to the city of Pella at the beginning of the 4th century BC.
This and other important findings of the archaeological excavations carried out during the rescue excavations in the necropolis of Aigai last year were presented by Angeliki Kottaridis, Honorary Director of Antiquities, at the 36th Annual Archaeological Meeting of the “the Archaeological Project in Macedonia and Thrace in 2023” in Thessaloniki.
The tomb, which dates back to the third century BC, was discovered in an area with mounds in the northwest corner of the necropolis.
The entranceway of the tomb enclosed by piles of stones was unearthed. The interior of the tomb measures 3.7 x 2.7 meters.
Helmet discovered by archaeologists in Aigai.
“This is an important tomb because the man buried here, the main deceased, had a shield reinforced with iron pieces, and the weapons preserved in sections show that they were made in a very good workshop, so it is probably one of the hetairai (Macedonian elite cavalry),” said Kottaridi.
The interior of the tomb is decorated with an encircling golden band with bows.
The colored mortars on the facade observed by the archaeologists belong to two phases and are explained by the later burial of his wife here, while a crown of gold myrtle attracted attention among the jewels found in the tomb.
The tomb that Dimitris Pandermanlis excavated in 1969 is located just 100 meters away from this one, and it contains two additional tombs. In the archaeologist’s opinion, it is most likely a group of wealthy tombs.
The oldest evidence of human cannibalism as a funerary practice in Europe
According to a new study, cannibalism was a common funerary practice in northern Europe around 15,000 years ago, with people eating their dead not out of necessity but rather as part of their culture.
Gough’s Cave is a well-known paleolithic site in south-eastern England. Nestled in the Cheddar Gorge, the cave is perhaps best known for the discovery of 15,000 years old human skulls shaped into what are believed to have been cups and bones that had been gnawed by other humans.
A study published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews suggests this was not an isolated incident. Their research focused on the Magdalenian period of the late Upper Paleolithic era. The Magdalenians lived some 11,000 to 17,000 years ago.
Experts at London’s National History Museum reviewed the literature to identify 59 Magdalenian sites that have human remains. Most were in France, with sites also in Germany, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Portugal. They were able to interpret the funerary behaviors at 25 of the sites.
The ritualistic manipulation of human remains and its frequent occurrence at sites across northern and western Europe suggested cannibalism was a burial practice – rather than to supplement diet – widespread in Magdalenian culture, researchers said.
‘Instead of burying their dead, these people were eating them,’ explains Dr. Silvia Bello, an expert on the evolution of human behaviour working at the Natural History Museum. ‘We interpret the evidence that cannibalism was practiced on multiple occasions across north-western Europe over a short period of time, as this practice was part of a diffuse funerary behaviour among Magdalenian groups.’
‘That in itself is interesting, because it is the oldest evidence of cannibalism as a funerary practice.’
This cannibalistic behaviour was seemingly fairly common amongst Magdalenian people of north-western Europe, but it didn’t last particularly long. There was a shift towards people burying their dead, a behaviour seen widely across south-central Europe and attributed to a second distinct culture, known as the Epigravettian.
Human remains from across north-western Europe indicate that cannibalism was a funerary practice.
This then raises the question of whether the eventual relative ubiquity of burial culture towards the end of the Palaeolithic was the result of Magdalenian people adopting primary burial as a funerary behaviour, or if their population was replaced.
Cannibalism as funerary behaviour
During the late Upper Palaeolithic, between around 23,000 and 14,000 years ago, there were two dominate cultures in western Europe, largely distinguished by the stone and bone tools the crafted.
The Epigravettian culture was mainly found living in south and eastern Europe, and buried their dead with graves goods in a way that we would perhaps consider more usual by modern standards. The Magdalenian culture from the north-west of Europe, however, were doing things differently. They were processing the bodies of their dead, removing the flesh from the corpse, eating it, and in some cases modifying the remaining bones to create new objects.
One of the main questions was whether or not this cannibalism was driven by necessity, when perhaps food was scarce or the winter long and so the people responsible were in survival mode, or whether it was a cultural behaviour.
Evidence from Gough’s Cave already suggests that the eating of the bodies there was of a more ritualistic form. This is because there is ample evidence that the people responsible were hunting and eating lots of other animals, such as deer and horses, while the careful preparation of some of the human remains like the skull cup and an engraved bone show that some was thought was being put into the cannibalism.
Dr. William Marsh is a researcher at the Natural History Museum who has been studying the human remains that have been found in Gough’s Cave for his Ph.D.
“To contextualize Gough’s Cave better, I reviewed of all the archaeological sites attributed to the Magdalenian and Epigravettian Upper Paleolithic culture,” explains William. He was able to find 59 sites across Europe from this time which had human remains, of which 13 showed evidence of cannibalism, 10 of burial and two that showed combined evidence of burial and cannibalism. What he realized was that the practice of eating the dead was fairly localized, being found at sites across western and central Europe and up into the U.K.
“The fact that we find cannibalism being practiced often on multiple occasions in over a short period of time, in a fairly localized area and solely by individuals attributed to the Magdalenian culture, means we believe this behavior was one that was performed widely by the Magdalenian, and was therefore a funerary behavior in itself,” says William.
In this context, the eating of the dead can be seen as different in practice, but perhaps not meaning, to cremations, burials or mummification.
Some of the human bones found at Gough’s Cave show evidence of having been worked, implying that the cannibalism had a ritualistic function.
Changing funerary practices
Building on this, William and Silvia were then able to look at whether any genetic analysis had been done on the human remains from these sites. This would enable the researchers to see if there were any links between who was practicing which funerary behaviors.
Remarkably, the genetic evidence seems to suggest that the two groups practicing different funerary behaviors were genetically distinct populations. All the sites from which evidence of cannibalism has been found show that the people were part of a genetic group known as “GoyetQ2,” while all of the more ordinary burials were of people who belonged to the “Villabruna” genetic group.
While both groups were living in Europe at the same time, individuals showing GoyetQ2 ancestry are associated with the region spanning the French-Spanish border, while Villabruna ancestry was carried by individuals who inhabited the Italian-Balkan region. This implies that when the practice of eating the dead ended and more conventional burials became common place in north-western Europe, it wasn’t through a spreading of ideas but rather Epigravettian people replacing the Magdalenian.
“At this time, during the terminal period of the Paleolithic, you actually see a turnover in both genetic ancestry and funerary behavior,” explains William. “The Magdalenian associated ancestry and funerary behavior is replaced by Epigravettian associated ancestry and funerary behavior, indicative of population replacement as Epigravettian groups migrated into north-western Europe.”
“We believe that rather than being an example of transcultural diffusion, the change in funerary behavior identified is an example of demic diffusion where essentially one population comes in and replaces the other population.”
Interestingly, this mirrors how researchers believe farming arrived in the U.K. some 6,000 years later.
Poland’s oldest copper axe discovered in the Lublin region
A copper axe from the 4th to 3rd millennium BC identified with the Trypillia culture was found in the Horodło municipality in the Hrubieszów district.
An axe discovered in the Hrubieszów district, identified with the Trypillia culture, is most likely the oldest find of a copper product in Poland informed the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments.
The Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments has described the valuable relic as being 7.4 cm in length, with a wide fan-shaped blade 4.1 cm wide, and a rectangular convex head measuring 0.9 cm x 0.6 cm.
The Cucuteni-Trypillia culture was one of the most important in South-Eastern Europe. It originated as a result of interactions between different Neolithic groups in the Carpathian-Balkan region during the second half of the sixth millennium BCE.
The fact that the ax appeared in eastern Poland is surprising because the territorial scope of the Trypillian culture covered the areas of today’s Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and western Ukraine.
Photo: Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments
Analyzing the find in terms of its chronological and cultural affiliation, the archaeologist from the Zamość delegation of the Voivodeship Office for the Protection of Historical Monuments, Wiesław Koman, sought the assistance of Professor Elżbieta Kłosińska from the Institute of Archaeology of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin.
The specialist ruled out that the presented axe belonged to Bronze Age cultures, as the artifact in no way corresponded to the known and already fairly well-recognized typologies of axes from that period.
“In addition, our ax was made in a quite simple ‘primitive’ casting method, in a flat-convex form, no longer used in the developed metallurgy of the Bronze Age.
Therefore, it was necessary to pay attention to the earlier Neolithic era. Unfortunately, in the inventories of Neolithic cultures from Poland there is no such equivalent,” the Lublin Conservator reported on social media.
The puzzle was solved by turning to archaeological finds from within Ukraine. “Wiesław Koman came across the publication of an identical find of a copper axe discovered in the village of Shcherbanivka in the Kyiv region, where the accompanying fragments of vascular pottery made it possible to attribute it to the Trypillia culture and date it to the late period of development of this culture, estimated at the 4th to 3rd millennium BC,” – reported the conservator.
Photo: Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments
The Lublin conservator says: “It is true that we have recorded finds of Trypillian culture pottery from Gródek, Hrubieszów commune, and the presence of this ax in nearby Matcz can be considered as confirmation of the settlement of people of this culture also in eastern Poland.”
The axe will soon be transferred to the collection of the Hrubieszów Museum, where it will undergo further research, reports the conservator.
The marble head of God Apollo unearthed in an excavation at Philippi, Greece
The excavation, carried out by a group of students of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the archaeological site of Philippi Kavala, brought to light important findings. Among other things, they discovered a rare head of Apollo dating back to the 2nd or early 3rd century AD.
The statue dates back to the 2nd or early 3rd century AD and it probably adorned an ancient fountain.
Natalia Poulos, Professor of Byzantine Archaeology, led the excavation, which included fifteen students from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (11 undergraduates, 2 master’s, and 2 PhD candidates), Assistant Docent Anastasios Tantsis, and Professor Emeritus of Byzantine Archaeology Aristotle Mendzo.
Archaeologists say, this year the excavation continued east of the southern main road (decumanus) at the point where it meets the northern axis of the city (the so-called “Egnatia”). The continuation of the marble-paved road was revealed, on the surface of which a coin (bronze phyllis) of the emperor Leo VI (886-912) was found, which helps to determine the duration of the road’s use. At the point where the two streets converge, a widening (square) seems to have been formed, dominated by a richly decorated building.
Archaeologists say evidence from last year’s excavations leads them to assume it was a fountain. The findings of this year’s research confirm this view and help them better understand its shape and function.
The research of 2022 brought to light part of the rich decoration of the fountain with the most impressive statue depicting Hercules as a boy with a young body.
The recent excavation (2023) revealed the head of another statue: it belongs to a figure of an ageneous man with a rich crown topped by a laurel leaf wreath. This beautiful head seems to belong to a statue of the god Apollo. Like the statue of Hercules, it dates from the 2nd or early 3rd century AD and probably adorned the fountain, which took its final form in the 8th to 9th centuries.
In classical Greek and Roman religion and mythology, Apollo is one of the Olympian gods. He is revered as a god of poetry, the Sun and light, healing and illness, music and dance, truth and prophecy, and archery, among other things.
Philip II, King of Macedon, founded the ancient city of Philippi in 356 BC on the site of the Thasian colony of Crenides near the Aegean Sea.
The archaeological site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 for its outstanding Roman architecture, urban layout as a smaller reflection of Rome itself, and significance in early Christianity.
Human remains found at prison sewer site are 4,500 years old in East Yorkshire
Archaeologists investigating the site of a new sewer to serve a jail being built at Full Sutton in East Yorkshire, England, have discovered a burial monument containing human remains thought to be about 4,500 years old.
Parts of a Roman road and a burnt mound were also discovered during a £5m project to build a 5.2km (3.2 miles) sewer near Full Sutton.
The site of the previously unknown Roman road is close to Stamford Bridge, flanked by drainage ditches which suggested to experts that it ran northwards towards the settlement of ‘Derventio Brigantium’ – close to modern-day Malton.
The first site was a small circular burial monument discovered in the vicinity of Full Sutton. Yorkshire Water said the small, circular monument contained a buried individual who was placed in a pit in a foetal or “crouched” position.
The archaeological team said these prehistoric traditions are seen in similar monuments, or “round barrows”, found around the UK and they believe that the Full Sutton example could be approximately 4,500 years old.
Gavin Robinson, from Ecus Archaeology, which undertook the investigation, said: “It was disturbed by later ploughing, but, considering the ground conditions, the associated human remains were surprisingly well-preserved.
The Neolithic or Bronze Age well could provide “important clues” into the history of the local environment.
“The local sandy geology is usually too acidic for human remains to survive, however, the grave had been backfilled with a mixture of burnt stone and charcoal from the adjacent ‘burnt mound’ spread, which seems to have helped the bones survive.”
No artifacts were discovered in the grave, which was constructed close to the third find – called a burnt mound.
The monument is estimated to be either from a Late Neolithic or Bronze Age date and was covered by a dome-shaped mound of earth or stone. Remnants of the burnt mound included a small earth oven and a deep pit that appeared to have been a well. Part of the wooden lining of the well was preserved by waterlogging as well as the lower fills which archaeologists took soil samples from.
Yorkshire Water said this could provide “valuable and rare data” into what the site was used for and possible preserved remains of plants and insects.
Ecus Archaeology, working on the site for Yorkshire Water, said the three sites give a glimpse into the prehistoric and early historic past of the area.
