2,800-year-old ivory ornament unearthed in Hattusa archeological site in Türkiye
A 2,800-year-old ivory ornament has been discovered by archaeologists in northern Türkiye at the excavation site of Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites, one of the most ancient Anatolian civilizations
The archaeological excavations in the present-day Bogazkale district of Corum province started in 1906 and have been led by Andreas Schachner on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute since 2006.
In the 117th year of the excavations, a piece of art that can provide insight into Iron Age art was unearthed on the northwest-facing slope of the Great Fortress area of the ancient city.
The piece, nearly 30 centimeters (1 foot) in length and 10 cm in width, features a sphinx, a lion, and two trees of life etched on an ivory surface.
Speaking to Anadolu, excavation chief Schachner said the artifact was found in the Iron Age layer of the Hattusa dig site, which contains traces of many civilizations.
“Most likely, in its own period, it was added as a decoration to a wooden box or a piece of furniture made of wood.
The work is broken on its right and left sides, but the upper and lower sides are intact. So, it can be inferred that it was actually longer,” Schachner said.
“This work is a unique piece for Bogazkoy. For the first time, we are facing a work adorned with such an intense and beautifully crafted scene.
Extensive excavations have been carried out in Bogazkoy for the Iron Age, but a work with such detail has not been encountered before,” he said.
The artifact shines a light on artistic relationships in Bogazkoy in this era, extending towards southeastern Anatolia, as well in the southwestern direction, and Greece, according to Schachner.
‘Magical’ Roman wind chime with phallus, believed to ward off evil eye, unearthed in Serbia
The “tintinnabulum” wind chime was found In debris from a large home in the ruins of the civilian city at the vast Viminacium archaeological site in the east of Serbia.
Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman wind chime called a tintinnabulum — featuring a prominent phallus — at an archaeological site in eastern Serbia.
Such objects, which were hung near the doorways of houses and shops, were believed to serve as magical protection for the premises. This one was discovered on the porch of a large home on a main street in Viminacium, an ancient Roman city, the extensive ruins of which now lie near the Serbian town of Kostolac, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Belgrade.
“The building was destroyed in a fire, during which the porch collapsed and fell to the ground,” Ilija Danković, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade, told the Serbian-language website Sve o arheologiji.
Tintinnabulums usually featured phalluses, which were a symbol of good luck for the Romans. This tintinnabulum of a phallus with wings and legs was found in Prague.
Tintinnabulums were designed to catch the wind, supposedly so their noise and unusual appearance would frighten off evil spirits and ward off the curse of the evil eye, which was greatly feared in antiquity.
Viminacium was the civil and military capital of Rome’s Upper Moesia province from the first to fifth centuries until it was sacked by the Huns under Attila in 441. The city was rebuilt under the Byzantine emperor Justinian, but it was finally destroyed by invading Slavs in about 535.
Magical phallus
Like many tintinnabulums, this one featured a portrayal of an outsized phallus with wings and legs. They were supposed to frighten off evil spirits with their unusual appearance and the noise they made in the wind.
This is the second tintinnabulum found in the ruins, Danković told Live Science. The first is now in a private collection in Austria; nothing is known about its discovery, he said.
However, the newly discovered tintinnabulum was discovered in its full archaeological context. “As soon as we started uncovering it, we knew immediately what we had discovered,” he said.
Archaeologists say the discovery of the tintinnabulum at Viminacium shows the social elites of the provincial city shared the same beliefs as people in the heart of the empire in Rome and had money to spend on imported objects.
The latest tintinnabulum from Viminacium is made of bronze, but it is being kept surrounded by soil until it can be properly restored. As a result, its exact configuration isn’t known. But it is centered on a “fascinum” — a portrayal of a magical phallus — with two legs, wings and a tail, he said.
“Judging by what can be seen … it had four bells and the chain from which it hung,” Danković said, adding that there also seemed to be other elements to the design not seen on other tintinnabulums.
Roman beliefs
Viminacium was the military and civil capital of the Roman province of Upper Moesia from the first until the fifth centuries, when it was destroyed by invading Slavs. It is now one of the most important Roman sites in Europe.
The symbol of a phallus wasn’t always erotic or obscene for the ancient Romans, Danković said. “It was a bringer of good fortune and happiness, and an efficient weapon to combat the evil eye,” he said. “For this reason, phalluses can be seen everywhere in the Roman world, from wine cups to the amulets worn by children.”
He added that the symbol was often publicly displayed to summon prosperity and deter thieves. The discovery of the tintinnabulum is evidence that Viminacium was “in every sense a part of the Roman world,” Danković said.
Not only did its people share many Roman beliefs, he said, but it’s likely that the tintinnabulum was imported from elsewhere in the empire, showing that there were social elites at Viminacium who were willing to pay a significant amount of money for such an object.
At its height, Viminacium was home to up to 40,000 people, including legions of the Roman Army. This model at the site shows how it looked after the third century A.D., with an amphitheater, temples, public baths, and other buildings.
Ken Dark, an archaeologist and historian at King’s College London who wasn’t involved in the discovery, said the Viminacium tintinnabulum was a type of “apotropaic” amulet that was designed to ward off evil influences and give protection to people or their property.
Such amulets “were common in the Roman world, and these sometimes took forms that would seem very strange—or even comical—to us today,” he told Live Science in an email.
Roman-Era Female Statue Dated Back To 1,800 Years Ago Unearthed In Anemurium, Türkiye
Among many extraordinary finds reported from the archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Anemurium located in the province of Mersin in southern Türkiye, is a Roman-era female statue probably dated back to 1,800 years ago.
This ancient statue is believed to represent an important person according to the archaeology team led by Professor Mehmet Tekocak from one of the Konya Selçuk University, one of the largest universities in Türkiye.
The statue is believed to have collapsed and remained underground due to a strong earthquake that occurred 1,500 years ago in the ancient city of Anemurium.
Describing the statue, the archaeologists say that the dressed female statue from the Roman era has a completely well-preserved intact body.
It is reported that the statue, which is decorated with two different clothes, a chiton at the bottom and a himation on top, represents a goddess, empress or philanthropic woman belonging to an aristocratic or important family who lived there 1,800 years ago.
Both the excavation works and restorations continue on a wide area in the ancient city, located in the southern province of Mersin, throughout the year, and there are new very interesting discoveries in the ruins of Anemurium, the city which had once a strategic position and importance, especially during the Roman Empire and Byzantine Period.
During this period, Anemurium, the main settlement of the Anamur Plain, became a prestigious market and administrative center for the mentioned plain and also a trade center due to its proximity to Cyprus.
Ruins of Opera House in Anemurium.
It took all day long for the teams to remove the statue. Finally, since a crane could not approach the area, the statue was removed, with the help of a small work machine with great care by an expert team from the Antalya Restoration and Conservation Regional Laboratory Directorate, and taken under protection for scientific studies, cleaning, conservation and restoration works.
“The ancient city of Anemurium is located in the Anamur district of Mersin, approximately 10 kilometers away from the city center, where findings are mainly from the 2nd century to the 6th century A.D. It is like a time capsule.
The moment you enter here, you are going back 1,800 years ago. We clearly know that the city existed 2,500 years ago.
It is also said that it goes back to the Hittites, but we have no information about this yet,” Tekocak said.
“This is an area right next to the Harbor Bath. We first started excavations in this structure to determine the characteristics and functions of the spaces of the Harbor Bath.
Later, we started excavations here to understand whether there was a relationship with the bath in this area right next to it, and we came across very interesting ruins and finds,” explained Professor Tekocak, adding that the exact place of this discovery is the lower city with many public building.
Ruins of the ancient city of Anemurium.
“We think that this place may be a ‘nymphaeum,’ that is, a fountain monument in ancient times. And we uncovered a very beautiful female statue decorating this fountain monument,” as cited by Hurriyet Daily News.
For now, the researchers do not know who is depicted in the statue. “Its head, arms, and feet are still missing. We later found one of her arms.
The work continues, and I hope we will find the other missing parts. It may be the portrait of someone, and if so, we will see the silhouette, picture or statue of someone who lived here 1,800 years ago for the first time.”
Scientists report discovering the oldest human fossil ever unearthed in Vietnam.
The skeletal remains that date back 10,000 years were found during an excavation by the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology at the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District.
“This is the first-time human remains dating back 10,000 years have been discovered in Vietnam,” Mai Thanh Chung, director of the Ha Nam Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said.
Human remains were found in the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in the Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province.
While examining the site, researchers discovered three graves of children and adults, with the people buried in a kneeling position.
In addition to human remains, scientists also found mollusk shells and teeth bones of small animals in the excavation pit, which could have been food sources for ancient people, the VNExpress informs.
The team from the Institute of Archeology also made two intriguing discoveries at two caves in Kim Bang where they unearthed “prehistoric paleontological vestiges and material culture including animal fossils and reddish-brown rope pottery fragments belonging to the Dong Son culture.
Dong Son was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centered in the Red River valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the first century AD.”
Tam Chuc pagoda – the world’s largest pagoda located in Ha Nam province of Vietnam.
“Renowned for its large, ceremonial bronze drums and viewed by many as the foundational culture for an emerging Vietnamese civilization, bearers of the Dongson Culture were farming societies scattered throughout the Bac Bo region of Vietnam along its main river systems.
These communities were marked by sophisticated bronze-working industries, intensifying agricultural practices, and degrees of social differentiation and political complexity.
They were well positioned for interaction and exchange with others throughout the local area and further afield, connecting Dongson societies with counterparts elsewhere in present-day areas of central Vietnam, southern China, Laos, and Thailand,” Nam C. Kim writes in The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia.
When scientists explored the Tam Chuc complex, a famous spiritual destination in Vietnam and home to one of the largest pagodas in the world, they came across sea mollusk shells along with stream snails.
At the top of the mountain in the complex were pieces of pottery lying alongside mollusk pieces.
Archaeologists from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology conducted an excavation in the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in the Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province.
According to the institute, many Kim Bang relics date from the late Pleistocene to the late Holocene age, 10,000-12,000 years ago.
Researchers concluded that the district used to be a favorable area, inhabited by many ancient residents.
Future archaeological excavations can offer more information about people who lived here a long time ago, and there is no doubt that finding the oldest human skeleton in Vietnam is an exciting and significant discovery.
Timbers of Fifteenth-Century Newport Ship Analyzed
Tree-ring analysis has been able to date a medieval ship found in a Welsh riverbank within a few months. The wreck of a 15th Century ship was found in the mud of Newport’s River Usk in 2002 and experts believe it is as significant a find as the Mary Rose.
Now researchers have found timbers from the hull of the former wine-trading vessel were made from oak trees that were felled in the winter of 1457-58.
“It helps us refine when the ship was built,” said ship curator Toby Jones.
It is another major development for the Newport ship conservation project who have been working for more than 20 years to conserve and ultimately rebuild the vessel, which is a century older than the Mary Rose.
Earlier this year, the team working on the £8m project finished the conservation process of the 2,500 pieces of wood uncovered in the banks of the River Usk by workers building Newport’s Riverfront Theatre. Experts believe the 30m (98ft), 400 tonne, medium-sized boat was having a refit in Newport in 1468 or 1469 following a voyage from the Iberian Peninsula to Bristol when its moorings broke.
After collapsing into an inlet of the River Usk, its 25-tonne hull was found more than 550 years later preserved in a wet, muddy riverbank.
The Newport ship was uncovered in 2002 when constructing a new theatre on the banks of the River Usk.
Archaeologists are planning the world’s largest attempt to put an archaeological ship back together which historians have called the the world’s largest 3D puzzle.
TV historian Dan Snow has said the Newport ship was “one of the most interesting and important shipwrecks found in British waters in a generation” and was of “global significance and interest”.
In another breakthrough, experts now know when the ship was built using oxygen isotope dendrochronology – an advanced study of tree-ring data – to determine an estimated date when it was built.
“We do know it came into Newport in 1468 or 1469 but we now know the ship was in existence for not quite a decade,” added Dr Jones.
This is how historians think the Newport ship may have looked as it docked in south Wales in the 15th Century.
“It allows us to really focus on that 1457-58 period for historical research but it shows this type of analysis has real potential to refine various parts of the construction sequence of the Newport ship.”
Research by University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Swansea University suggests the vessel was constructed soon after the oak trees were chopped down in the winter of 1457-58.
The research, published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, also suggested the vessel had a working life of about 10 years before coming to Newport for repairs in the late 1460s.
The ship would have been moored on the River Usk in Newport in about 1468
Previous research has shown that the ship timbers originated from forests in the Basque Country in northern Spain and that the ship was likely built along the Basque coast.
Tudor king Henry VIII’s flagship naval vessel the Mary Rose is perhaps the most famous 16th Century ship on display while the Vasa in Sweden is the 17th Century equivalent.
Now historians say the Newport ship could become the only 15th Century maritime exhibit on show anywhere in the world when it is restored. Historians have undertaken painstaking 20-year conservation work including drying out, freeze drying treating the oak timbers before beginning to focus on rebuilding.
Researchers used pioneering oxygen isotope dendrochronology to help date the timbers of the Newport ship
Archaeologists had thought the ship may been 10 years older than the new analysis proves – and the research may possibly help experts rebuild the vessel.
“It allows us to focus our resources on that specific season,” said Dr Jones.
“We can cut out anything from early 1450s now so narrow it down to a smaller window we can be more effective in our research to identify the ship.
“We can start to do this analysis on many of the timbers and if it gets really precise, we can start to determine the construction sequence and what timbers were harvested when and when they were added to the ship – so we can put dates on every timber.”
The 2,500 planks from the Newport ship were held in wax for four years as part of the restoration process
Dr Jones said the pioneering dating of the Newport ship was “stunning” because of what the wood has been through.
“The Newport ship has been through a lot,” he said. “More than 500 years underground, gone through cleaning, conservation, soaked in wax and freeze-dried – and yet these isotope signatures are still in the timbers.
“I wouldn’t have thought that was possible but this analysis has proved that information is still locked away in those tree rings.
“It’s great for us, it’s great for the Newport ship but also means we can do it on other vessels and timber structures that previously didn’t date with traditional ring dendrochronology can now potentially be dated with oxygen isotope or stable isotope dendrochronology.
A third of the Newport ship – coloured in brown in this image – remains
“It’s really exciting, not just for ships and ship archaeology but for anything made of wood that’s old.”
Experts used oxygen isotope dendrochronology to estimate when the timbers were harvested which has been called a “revolutionary” development in dating wood, like the advent of DNA technology in criminology.
“This process is only five to 10 years old and allows us to find answers today that we couldn’t get before,” said Prof Nigel Nayling, University of Wales Trinity St David’s chair of archaeology.
“It’s a complex process that takes a long time, days and days of work, and a lot of resource but it is a game-changer for archaeologists, it’s a significant innovation.”
A rare tumor with teeth discovered in Egyptian burial from 3,000 years ago
Teratoma with Tooth A (lower) in situ and Tooth B (upper) retrofitted in the crypt.
While excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery, archaeologists made a rare discovery: an ovarian tumor nestled in the pelvis of a woman who died more than three millennia ago.
The tumor, a bony mass with two teeth, is the oldest known example of a teratoma, a rare type of tumor that typically occurs in ovaries or testicles.
A teratoma can be benign or malignant, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and it is usually made up of various tissues, such as muscle, hair, teeth or bone.
Teratomas can cause pain and swelling and, if they rupture, can lead to infection. In the present day, removal of the mass is the typical treatment.
Tomb 3 of the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna, Egypt. Right: Shaft with the north chamber in the background. Bottom left: Individual 3051 on the far left. Top left: Illustration of the pelvic area of Individual 3051, showing the positions of the teratoma and finger rings.
Only four archaeological examples of teratomas had previously been found — three in Europe and one in Peru.
The recent discovery of a teratoma in the New Kingdom period cemetery in Amarna, Egypt, both founded around 1345 B.C., is only the fifth archaeological case published, making it the oldest known example of a teratoma and the first ancient case found in Africa.
Amarna was a short-lived city on the eastern bank of the Nile River, about halfway between the cities of Cairo and Luxor (ancient Thebes). It functioned as the center of pharaoh Akhenaten’s worship of the sun god Aten and was home to his royal court.
Although the city included temples, palaces and other buildings that supported a population of around 20,000 to 50,000, it was abandoned within a decade after Akhenaten died in 1336 B.C., the study reported.
Teratoma in situ in left sciatic notch.
Four large cemeteries associated with Amarna have been investigated by archaeologists. In one tomb in the North Desert Cemetery that consisted of a shaft and a burial chamber, researchers found the skeleton of an 18- to 21-year-old woman wrapped in a plant fiber mat.
She was buried with a number of grave goods, including a ring decorated with the figure of Bes, a deity often associated with childbirth, fertility and protection.
During excavation, archaeologists noticed something unusual in the woman’s pelvis: a bony mass, about the size of a large grape, with two depressions that contained deformed teeth.
Gretchen Dabbs, a bioarchaeologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and colleagues published the discovery of this tumor online Oct. 30 in the International Journal of Paleopathology. Ruling out other diagnoses, they suggested that the presence of teeth and the location within the woman’s pelvic region indicated it was an ovarian teratoma.
Teratoma in situ, showing Tooth B near top of the left thigh bone.
The Bes ring may hint that the teratoma was symptomatic, as the possible “magico-medical” object was placed on the woman’s left hand, which was folded across her lap above the teratoma. This may mean the woman “was attempting to invoke Bes to protect her from pain or other symptoms, or aid in her attempts to conceive and birth a child,” they wrote in their study.
“By 18-21 years, this individual probably would have been someone’s wife,” Dabbs told Live Science in an email, but there is also “little doubt she was working in some fashion.” Previous research at Amarna has suggested that women this age were engaging in a range of trades, which might have included working on state-level building projects, brewing beer, or tending to household gardens and livestock.
Bes ring illustration (Image credit: A. Salvador/Amarna Project)
Allison Foley, a bioarchaeologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that this discovery is important because “teratomas are very rarely identified archaeologically.”
The Amarna example demonstrates how researchers can learn more about what living in ancient Egypt was like, Foley said, and the “presence, location, and possible symbolic importance of the Bes ring as a token of protection and fertility is particularly fascinating and evocative.”
Dabbs is still working on the full analysis of the hundreds of skeletons excavated last year from the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna. But future plans include looking into biological relationships among the people buried there, as well as further investigating other Egyptian burials with potential “magico-medical” objects.
10,000-Year-Old Human Remains Discovered in Vietnam
Skeletal remains dating back 10,000 years have been found in the northern province of Ha Nam, marking the oldest human fossil ever unearthed in Vietnam.
Human remains found in Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province, March 2023.
Mai Thanh Chung, director of the Ha Nam Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, said at a meeting Thursday that the remains were found during an excavation carried out by the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology at the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District last March.
Archaeologists discovered three graves of children and adults, with the people buried in a kneeling position.
“This is the first time human remains dating back 10,000 years have been discovered in Vietnam,” said Chung.
In addition to human remains, scientists also found in the excavation pit mollusk shells and teeth and bones of small animals, which could have been food sources for ancient people.
Archaeologists from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology during an excavation in Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province, March 2023.
Also during the March excavation at two caves in Kim Bang, the Institute of Archeology discovered prehistoric paleontological vestiges and material culture, including animal fossils and reddish-brown rope pottery fragments belonging to the Dong Son culture.
Dong Son was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centered in the Red River valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the first century AD.
Within the Tam Chuc complex, the archeologists discovered sea mollusk shells along with stream snails. At the top of the mountain in the complex, they found pieces of pottery lying alongside mollusk pieces.
Many of the Kim Bang relics date back from the late Pleistocene to the late Holocene, or 10,000-12,000 years ago, according to the institute.
Researchers concluded that the district used to be a favorable area, inhabited by many ancient residents.
A rare tumor with teeth discovered in Egyptian burial from 3,000 years ago
Teratoma with Tooth A (lower) in situ and Tooth B (upper) retrofitted in crypt.
While excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery, archaeologists made a rare discovery: an ovarian tumor nestled in the pelvis of a woman who died more than three millennia ago. The tumor, a bony mass with two teeth, is the oldest known example of a teratoma, a rare type of tumor that typically occurs in ovaries or testicles.
A teratoma can be benign or malignant, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and it is usually made up of various tissues, such as muscle, hair, teeth or bone. Teratomas can cause pain and swelling and, if they rupture, can lead to infection. In the present day, removal of the mass is the typical treatment.
Tomb 3 of the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna, Egypt. Right: Shaft with the north chamber in the background. Bottom left: Individual 3051 on the far left. Top left: Illustration of the pelvic area of Individual 3051, showing the positions of the teratoma and finger rings.
Only four archaeological examples of teratomas had previously been found — three in Europe and one in Peru. The recent discovery of a teratoma in the New Kingdom period cemetery in Amarna, Egypt, both founded around 1345 B.C., is only the fifth archaeological case published, making it the oldest known example of a teratoma and the first ancient case found in Africa.
Amarna was a short-lived city on the eastern bank of the Nile River, about halfway between the cities of Cairo and Luxor (ancient Thebes). It functioned as the center of pharaoh Akhenaten’s worship of the sun god Aten and was home to his royal court.
Although the city included temples, palaces, and other buildings that supported a population of around 20,000 to 50,000, it was abandoned within a decade after Akhenaten died in 1336 B.C., the study reported.
Teratoma in situ in left sciatic notch.
Four large cemeteries associated with Amarna have been investigated by archaeologists. In one tomb in the North Desert Cemetery that consisted of a shaft and a burial chamber, researchers found the skeleton of an 18- to 21-year-old woman wrapped in a plant fiber mat.
She was buried with a number of grave goods, including a ring decorated with the figure of Bes, a deity often associated with childbirth, fertility and protection.
During excavation, archaeologists noticed something unusual in the woman’s pelvis: a bony mass, about the size of a large grape, with two depressions that contained deformed teeth.
Gretchen Dabbs, a bioarchaeologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and colleagues published the discovery of this tumor online Oct. 30 in the International Journal of Paleopathology. Ruling out other diagnoses, they suggested that the presence of teeth and the location within the woman’s pelvic region indicated it was an ovarian teratoma.
Teratoma in situ, showing Tooth B near top of the left thigh bone.
The Bes ring may hint that the teratoma was symptomatic, as the possible “magico-medical” object was placed on the woman’s left hand, which was folded across her lap above the teratoma. This may mean the woman “was attempting to invoke Bes to protect her from pain or other symptoms, or aid in her attempts to conceive and birth a child,” they wrote in their study.
“By 18-21 years, this individual probably would have been someone’s wife,” Dabbs told Live Science in an email, but there is also “little doubt she was working in some fashion.”
Previous research at Amarna has suggested that women this age were engaging in a range of trades, which might have included working on state-level building projects, brewing beer, or tending to household gardens and livestock.
Bes ring illustration
Allison Foley, a bioarchaeologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that this discovery is important because “teratomas are very rarely identified archaeologically.”
The Amarna example demonstrates how researchers can learn more about what living in ancient Egypt was like, Foley said, and the “presence, location, and possible symbolic importance of the Bes ring as a token of protection and fertility is particularly fascinating and evocative.”
Dabbs is still working on the full analysis of the hundreds of skeletons excavated last year from the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna. But future plans include looking into biological relationships among the people buried there, as well as further investigating other Egyptian burials with potential “magico-medical” objects.
