Category Archives: WORLD

EUROPE, ROMANIA, WORLD

3,000-year-old human skeleton found in Romanian archaeological site

3,000-year-old human skeleton found in Romanian archaeological site

A 3,000-year-old human skeleton was recently discovered at an archaeological excavation site in the village of Drăguşeni, Botoşani county.

3,000-year-old human skeleton found in Romanian archaeological site
3,000-year-old human skeleton found in Romanian archaeological site

The skeleton dates back to the beginning of the Bronze Age and to the Yamnaya culture, and was identified after exploring a large tumulus in Drăguşeni, according to Adela Kovacs, the head of the archaeology section of the Botoşani County Museum.

“The research in Drăguşeni focused on several periods and multiple sites. We carried out surface research in the area starting in 2018. During a field visit with colleagues from the Institute of Archaeology in Iași, we identified the remains of two large, flattened tumuli, burial monuments, that were becoming increasingly damaged due to agriculture, and we recently decided to study them.

We primarily focused on recovering scientific information and documenting the remains, and so far we have identified only one skeleton.

The skeleton dates back to the beginning of the Bronze Age and the Yamnaya culture, which is not well known in Botoșani county,” Adela Kovacs told Agerpres.

The digging in Drăguşeni was carried out by a team composed of archaeologists from the Botoșani County Museum, in partnership with archaeologists and anthropologists from the Archaeological Institute of Iași, as well the University of Opava and the Silesian Museum in the Czech Republic.

Specialists say that the skeleton “provides very valuable information with regards to the funerary rituals practiced at that time,” and note that “the skeleton bears traces of red ochre, a substance that was placed on the deceased, in the head and in the leg areas, to emphasize a ritual related to rebirth, blood, and the afterlife.

“The body’s position is curled. Initially, it was placed on its back, with the knees brought to the chest, suggesting a fetal position. This baby position represents the return to earth through a future birth,” ” said the head of the archaeology section of the Botoșani County Museum.

According to Kovacs, the entire Botoșani county has numerous tumuli. “The Drăgușeni area in particular was preferred by certain prehistoric communities when it came to burying those who were their leaders, probably, because these tumuli are funerary prestige elements.

The fact that a certain community dug the grave and built these tombs and covered them with actual artificial hills probably signaled to other populations the fact that those buried were top leaders or important people of the community,” she explained.

The skeleton was dug out, lifted, and transferred to Iași, where, following an analysis, anthropologists will determine its exact age, sex, diet, or other anthropological elements.

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

Saudi Arabia unveils reconstructed face of a 2000-year-old Nabataean woman

Saudi Arabia unveils reconstructed face of a 2000-year-old Nabataean woman

Saudi Arabia unveils reconstructed face of a 2000-year-old Nabataean woman

Saudi Arabia is unveiling a reconstruction of the face of an ancient Nabataean woman after several years of work by historians and archaeologists.

The reconstruction, which is the first of its kind, is modeled on the remains of Hinat, a Nabataean woman who was discovered in 2015 in a 2,000-year-old tomb in Hegra, an archaeological site located in the ancient oasis city AlUla, northwestern Saudi Arabia.

Funded by the Royal Commission for AlUla, the reconstruction of Hinat began in the United Kingdom in 2019.

A multidisciplinary team of experts rebuilt bone fragments found in the tomb to reconstruct an image of her appearance using anthropological and archaeological data. A sculptor then used a 3D printer to bring her face to life.

The Nabataeans were an ancient Arab civilization that inhabited northern Arabia and the Levant over 2,000 years ago. The ancient Jordanian city of Petra was the capital of their kingdom, which became a vibrant and commercial international trading hub for spices, medicine and fabric, facilitated by the Nabataeans.

A reconstructed face of an ancient woman known as “Hinat,” a member of the Nabataean civilisation that dates back over 2,000 years, is displayed at the Hegra Welcome Centre.

Starting Monday, history buffs will have the opportunity to meet Hinat on display at the Hegra welcome center in AlUla.

Once a thriving hub for international trade and home to the Nabataeans, Hegra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was opened in 2020 as a tourist site.

The Nabataean civilization didn’t leave significant historical texts, and information about it comes from inscriptions on tombs and on rocks throughout the Middle East, or from archaeological discoveries.

“The Nabataeans are a bit of a mystery: We know a lot, but at the same time we know very little because they didn’t leave any literary texts or records,” Lebanese-French archeologist Laila Nehme, the director of the project, told National Geographic. “Excavating this tomb was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about their idea of the afterlife.”

According to Nehme, the Nabataeans’ alphabet evolved into modern-day Arabic.

“This tomb has a very nice inscription carved on its facade, which says it belonged to a woman called Hinat,” added Nehme.

But not everyone believes this historical breakthrough is necessarily an accurate representation of the ancient Nabataeans.

Laurence Hapiot, an archaeologist at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, tweeted that “there is still some non-scientific interpretation in face reconstruction.”

The AlUla Royal Commission didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

SOURCE: https://edition.cnn.com/

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Unique Golden Glass Image Unearthed in Rome

Unique Golden Glass Image Unearthed in Rome

A spear, helmet, proud profile – after hundreds of years a refined artifact of ancient Rome representing the personification of the Eternal City has come to light from excavation work for the Metro C subway line.

The iconographic theme is already well-known, but it is the first and only representation found so far on golden glass.

 “Golden glass is already a very rare finding, but this has no comparison” according to preliminary findings, Simona Morretta, archaeologist of the special superintendency of Rome, explained to ANSA.

“No golden glass with the personification of the city of Rome had ever been found before”.

 The expert said its execution is “extraordinarily refined”.

Originally, it was at the bottom of a cup, “a particular object that was often used as a gift”.

The person using the cup could in this way look at the image at the bottom while drinking.

“We don’t know whether it was really used to contain something or as a decorative object, but certainly putting an image at the bottom reflects that idea”.

The artifact experienced different lives before: “It was a precious object – she went on to explain – and it wasn’t thrown away after it broke or got damaged. But given that a glass cup could not be repaired, the bottom was ‘cut off’ and perhaps it was exhibited on furniture or hung on a wall”.

The finding did not belong to the military facility found during the excavation, which was abandoned in the middle of the third century, and subsequently ‘razed’, the walls were cut and debris was thrown inside to be covered by earth.

The piece of glass emerged under layers of earth and has a later date.

“From an initial study, it looks like the artifact is from the start of the fourth century”, added the archaeologist.

It will now have another life and will be showcased in a “display case in the station-museum of the Porta Metronia subway”, she concluded.

EUROPE, PORTUGAL, WORLD

Neanderthals Enjoyed Seaside Crab Roasts in Portugal

Neanderthals Enjoyed Seaside Crab Roasts in Portugal

Neanderthals Enjoyed Seaside Crab Roasts in Portugal

Scientists studying archaeological remains at Gruta da Figueira Brava, Portugal, discovered that Neanderthals were harvesting shellfish to eat – including brown crabs, where they preferred larger specimens and cooked them in fires. Archeologists say this disproves the idea that eating marine foods gave early modern humans’ brains the competitive advantage.

In a cave just south of Lisbon, archeological deposits conceal a Paleolithic dinner menu. As well as stone tools and charcoal, the site of Gruta de Figueira Brava contains rich deposits of shells and bones with much to tell us about the Neanderthals that lived there – especially about their meals.

A study published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology shows that 90,000 years ago, these Neanderthals were cooking and eating crabs.

“At the end of the Last Interglacial, Neanderthals regularly harvested large brown crabs,” said Dr Mariana Nabais of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA), lead author of the study.

“They were taking them in pools of the nearby rocky coast, targeting adult animals with an average carapace width of 16cm. The animals were brought whole to the cave, where they were roasted on coals and then eaten.”

Catching crabs in Paleolithic Portugal

A wide variety of shellfish remains were found in the archeological remains Nabais and her colleagues studied, but the shellfish in the undisturbed Paleolithic deposits are overwhelmingly represented by brown crabs. Their size was estimated by calculating the size of the carapace relative to the crabs’ pincers, which preserve better than other parts of the crab, so are more likely to survive to be found by scientists.

The archeologists assessed the breakage on the shells, looked for butchery or percussion marks, and determined whether the crabs had been exposed to high heat.

Nabais and her colleagues found that the crabs were mostly large adults which would yield about 200g of meat. By studying the patterns of damage on the shells and claws, they ruled out the involvement of other predators: there were no carnivore or rodent marks, and the patterns of breakage didn’t reflect predation by birds. Crabs are evasive, but Neanderthals could have harvested brown crabs of this size from low tide pools in the summer.

Accumulations of shellfish which are caused by hominins are identified by their association with stone tools and other hominin-made features like hearths, surface modifications like the burns found on approximately 8% of the crab shells, and evidence of intentional fractures; the fracture patterns on the crabs at Gruta de Figueira Brava suggested they’d been broken open for access to the meat. The expectation is also that larger individuals will be overrepresented, as at Gruta de Figueira Brava, reflecting hominins choosing animals which offer more meat.

Shellfish on the menu

The evidence indicated to Nabais and her colleagues that Neanderthals weren’t just harvesting the crabs, they were roasting them. The black burns on the shells, compared to studies of other mollusks heated at specific temperatures, showed that the crabs were heated at about 300-500 degrees Celsius, typical for cooking.

“Our results add an extra nail to the coffin of the obsolete notion that Neanderthals were primitive cave dwellers who could barely scrape a living off scavenged big-game carcasses,” said Nabais. “Together with the associated evidence for the large-scale consumption of limpets, mussels, clams, and a range of fish, our data falsify the notion that marine foods played a major role in the emergence of putatively superior cognitive abilities among early modern human populations of sub-Saharan Africa.”

The authors cautioned that it was impossible to know why Neanderthals chose to harvest crabs or whether they attached any significance to consuming crabs, but whatever their reasons eating the crabs would have offered meaningful nutritional benefits.

“The notion of the Neanderthals as top-level carnivores living off large herbivores of the steppe-tundra is extremely biased,” said Nabais. “Such views may well apply to some extent to the Neanderthal populations of Ice Age Europe’s periglacial belt, but not to those living in the southern peninsulas — and these southern peninsulas are where most of the continent’s humans lived all through the Paleolithic, before, during and after the Neanderthals.”

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Turkey’s Gaziantep Castle Damaged by Earthquakes

Turkey’s Gaziantep Castle Damaged by Earthquakes

Turkey’s Gaziantep Castle Damaged by Earthquakes

The earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday has badly damaged Gaziantep Castle, a historic site and tourist attraction in southeastern Turkey.

The castle collapsed during the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck in the early hours of February 6.

“Some of the bastions in the east, south, and southeast parts of the historical Gaziantep Castle in the central Şahinbey district were destroyed by the earthquake, the debris was scattered on the road,” Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported.

“The iron railings around the castle were scattered on the surrounding sidewalks. The retaining wall next to the castle also collapsed. In some bastions, large cracks were observed,” the report said.

The dome and eastern wall of the historical Şirvani Mosque, which is located next to the castle and is said to have been built in the 17th century, also partially collapsed, it added.

According to archaeological excavations, the castle was first built as a watchtower in the Roman period in the second and third centuries C.E. and expanded over time.

It took its current form during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527-565 C.E.), according to Turkish Museums, the official site of museums and archaeological sites in the country.

Most recently, it served as the Gaziantep Defense and Heroism Panoramic Museum.

Gaziantep Castle is seen in this file image.

So far, there have been more than 18 recorded aftershocks measuring 4 or higher on the Richter scale since the initial tremor, one of the strongest to hit Turkey in a century.

More than 600 people have been killed throughout the affected areas of Turkey and Syria.

According to Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay, some 1,700 buildings were damaged across 10 Turkish cities.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

2,500-Year-Old Bronze Items and Bones Recovered in Poland

2,500-Year-Old Bronze Items and Bones Recovered in Poland

Dozens of bronze ornaments: necklaces, bracelets, greaves, decorative pins, as well as numerous human bones, were discovered in the Chełmno district (Kujawy-Pomerania Province). According to archaeologists, these are the remains of sacrificial rituals from 2,500 years ago.

Today, the site of the discovery is a drained peat bog transformed into a farmland, but in the 6th century BCE it was a lake.

The discovery was made in the Chełmno Lake District by members of the Kujawy-Pomerania History Seekers Group, who conducted searches with metal detectors, with the permission of the Kujawy-Pomerania Province Conservator of Monuments in Toruń.

After being alerted by a group of detectorists, excavations led by Wojciech Sosnowski from the Office of Conservator of Monuments in Toruń began in January. They were carried out by researchers from the Institute of Archaeology of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the services of the Wda Landscape Park.

Sosnowski told PAP: “In the 6th century BCE, in the early Iron Age, ritual ceremonies were held here periodically.”

In addition to valuable items lying loosely in the ground, probably displaced as a result of ploughing, the researchers also found three deposits. These accumulations of monuments have remained in the same place since they were deposited 2.5 thousand years ago.

2,500-Year-Old Bronze Items and Bones Recovered in Poland

Sosnowski told PAP: “In the 6th century BCE, in the early Iron Age, ritual ceremonies were held here periodically.”

In addition to valuable items lying loosely in the ground, probably displaced as a result of ploughing, the researchers also found three deposits. These accumulations of monuments have remained in the same place since they were deposited 2.5 thousand years ago.

According to the researchers, most of the items discovered during the research project are whole or damaged ornaments: necklaces, bracelets, greaves, pins with spiral heads, probably made for ceremonial purposes.

Dr. Jacek Gackowski from the Institute of Archaeology of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, who analysed the artefacts said: “A particularly impressive object is a necklace consisting of many delicate metal and probably glass elements, decorated with a series of pendants in the shape of fish tails.”

The researchers also discovered metal parts of horse harnesses and a large number of other items. Among them there are very rarely preserved products made of organic raw materials – fabrics, antler tools in bronze sheet fittings and pieces of rope.

Most of the artefacts, according to the researchers, should be associated with the Lusatian culture. Several dozen kilometres further to the south-east, its representatives lived in the now famous fortified settlement in Biskupin. However, there are also objects that are foreign to this area and should be associated with the Scythian civilization and its influences from the area of today’s Ukraine.

Dr. Gackowski said: “This includes temple rings – unique objects of great scientific value, because they are – so far and in such numbers – the northernmost artefacts of this type discovered in Europe.”

The researchers were surprised to find many human bones among dozens of artefacts. This suggests that it was a place where sacrifices were probably made in prehistory, and not only of valuable items.

Why were people sacrificed? According to the researchers, this was related to the period of migrations and, probably, invasions.

Gackowski said: “It was a time of growing unrest related to the penetration of groups of nomads coming from the Pontic Steppe, probably Scythians or the Neuri, into Central and Eastern Europe.

“These people, probably in order to delay the rapid changes associated with the appearance of new neighbours with a completely different organization, appearance and vision of the world, began to practice various rituals treatments. They tried to secure their existence and give ritual resistance to the imminent, as it turned out, inevitable changes.”

To date, archaeologists have collected over a hundred human bone fragments. All the remains were on the surface of a freshly ploughed field.

 “At the moment, it is difficult to estimate how many people we are dealing with. It will be determined by a thorough anthropological analysis,” said Mateusz Sosnowski, an archaeologist from the Wda Landscape Park, who participated in the field work.

For security reasons and fear of robbery, archaeologists have not yet revealed the exact location of the discovery.

The custom of sinking bronze products during that period is known from other areas of Europe. Treasures from the period are also discovered in Poland, but according to scientists analysing the collection, this is the first place in Poland where people were also sacrificed.

The community described by scientists as the Lusatian culture inhabited the Vistula and Oder river basins, as well as the areas of Saxony, Brandenburg, northern Bohemia and Lusatia. Its economy was mainly based on farming and breeding horned cattle, sheep, pigs and goats. 

In the beginning of the Iron Age, in addition to open settlements, forts also appeared (existing from the 8th to the 6th century BCE), considered tribal centres or places of refuge during unrest. The bronze artefacts and offerings discovered by detectorists and archaeologists come from that period.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Ancient Egyptian Embalming Residues Analyzed

Ancient Egyptian Embalming Residues Analyzed

Ancient Egyptian Embalming Residues Analyzed
Vessels from an ancient Egyptian embalming workshop, including these, provided scientists with clues to the ingredients used in various mixtures for preparing the dead for mummification.

Scientists have unwrapped long-sought details of embalming practices that ancient Egyptians used to preserve dead bodies.

Clues came from analyses of chemical residue inside vessels from the only known Egyptian embalming workshop and nearby burial chambers. Mummification specialists who worked there concocted specific mixtures to embalm the head, wash the body, treat the liver and stomach, and prepare bandages that swathed the body, researchers report February 1 in Nature.

“Ancient Egyptian embalmers had extensive chemical knowledge and knew what substances to put on the skin to preserve it, even without knowing about bacteria and other microorganisms,” Philipp Stockhammer, an archaeologist at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, said at a January 31 news conference.

The findings come courtesy of chemical residue inside 31 vessels found in an Egyptian embalming workshop and four vessels discovered in an adjacent pair of burial chambers. Writing on workshop vessels named embalming substances, provided embalming instructions (such as “to put on his head”) or both. All the artifacts — dating from Egypt’s 26th dynasty which rose to power between 664 B.C. and 525 B.C. — were excavated at a cemetery site called Saqqara in 2016. Archaeologist and study coauthor Ramadan Hussein, who died in 2022, led that project.

Newfound mummy embalming mixtures

Five of the vessels had the label antiu. The substance was thought to have been a fragrant resin called myrrh. The antiu at Saqqara, however, consisted of oil or tar from cedar and juniper or cypress trees mixed with animal fats. Writing on these jars indicates that antiu could have been used alone or combined with another substance called sefet.

Three vessels from the embalming workshop bore the label sefet, which researchers have usually described as an unidentified oil. At Saqqara, sefet was a scented, fat-based ointment with added ingredients from plants. Two sefet pots contained animal fats mixed with oil or tar from juniper or cypress trees. A third container held animal fats and elemi, a fragrant resin from tropical trees.

Clarification of the ingredients in antiu and sefet at Saqqara “takes mummification studies further than before,” says Egyptologist Bob Brier of Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y., who was not part of the research.

Egyptians may have started mummifying their dead as early as 6,330 years ago (SN: 8/18/14). Mummification procedures and rituals focused on keeping the body fresh so the deceased could enter what was believed to be an eternal afterlife.

Embalming and mummification procedures likely changed over time, says team member Maxime Rageot, a biomolecular archaeologist also at Ludwig Maximilians University. Embalmers’ mixtures at Saqqara may not correspond, say, to those used around 700 years earlier for King Tutankhamun (SN: 11/2/22).

Mummy embalming instructions

Outside surfaces of other vessels from the Saqqara embalming workshop and burial chambers sported labels and, in some cases, instructions for treatment of the head, preparation of linen mummy bandages, washing the body and treating the liver and stomach. Inscriptions on one jar referred to an administrator who performed embalming procedures, mainly on the head.

Chemical residue inside these pots consisted of mixtures specific to each embalming procedure. Ingredients included oils or tars of cedar and juniper or cypress trees, pistachio resin, castor oil, animal fats, heated beeswax, bitumen (a dense, oily substance), elemi and a resin called dammar.

Most of those substances have been identified in earlier studies of chemical residues from Egyptian mummies and embalming vessels in individual tombs, says Egyptologist Margaret Serpico of University College London. But elemi and dammar resins have not previously been linked to ancient Egyptian embalming practices and are “highly unexpected,” notes Serpico, who did not participate in the new study.

Elemi was an ingredient in the workshop mixtures used to treat the head, the liver and bandages wrapped around the body. Chemical signs of dammar appeared in a vessel from one of the burial chambers that included remnants of a range of substances, indicating that the container had been used to blend several different mixtures, the researchers say.

Specific properties of elemi and dammar that aided in preserving dead bodies have yet to be investigated, Stockhammer said.

A far-flung trade network for mummy embalming ingredients

Elemi resin reached Egypt from tropical parts of Africa or Southeast Asia, while dammar originated in Southeast Asia or Indonesia, Rageot says. Other embalming substances detected at Saqqara came from Southwest Asia and parts of southern Europe and northern Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. These findings provide the first evidence that ancient Egyptian embalmers depended on substances transported across vast trade networks.

Egyptian embalmers at Saqqara took advantage of a trade network that already connected Egypt to sites in Southeast Asia, Stockhammer said. Other Mediterranean and Asian societies also engaged in long-distance trade during ancient Egypt’s heyday (SN: 1/9/23).

It’s no surprise that ancient Egyptians imported embalming ingredients from distant lands, Brier says. “They were great traders, had limited [local] wood products and really wanted these substances to achieve immortality.”

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Researchers Examine Discarded Roman Tiles

Researchers Examine Discarded Roman Tiles

Researchers Examine Discarded Roman Tiles
A written name and the imprint of a woman’s sandal have been found on tiles recovered from a 3rd Century tile factory at Priors Hall Park, near Corby

Markings found in Roman tiles have shown workers were “more of a mixture” of people than first thought. The imprint of a woman’s sandal and a written name were found on items recovered from a 3rd Century tile factory at Priors Hall Park, Corby.

Experts said they showed workers were not just young male slaves but “literate men and women in nice shoes”.

Nick Gilmour, from Oxford Archaeology, said the marks showed it was “not clear cut” who the Roman workers were. Archaeologists have been working on-and-off at the Northamptonshire site for about 12 years, ahead of a development of more than 5,000 homes.

Several tile kilns were among the items excavated at the Priors Hall Park development in Corby

The Little Weldon Roman villa had first been uncovered in the 18th Century, but in 2011 during a geophysical survey a second Roman villa was revealed.

Oxford Archaeology took on the excavations in 2019 when Urban & Civic took over the development. They uncovered a temple/mausoleum that was turned into a pottery, brick and tile manufacturing centre sometime in the later 3rd to early 4th Century, to make building materials for Roman villas.

The latest findings come from the analysis of recovered material, including six tonnes of discarded tiles which are now being recorded. Mr Gilmour said Romans in the area were producing tonnes of tiles weekly to distribute around a network.

The industrial site was used to make materials for building Roman villas

While many are just basic tiles, “maybe one in 10,000 is really interesting”, including a “big thick tile” in which somebody had used their finger to trace letters in it, he said.

Individual tilers would often mark about one in every few they produced with a signature, so they could get paid for what survived the kiln. But these tile signatures were usually patterns and symbols which showed that workers were not high status.

The latest findings come from the analysis of thousands of recovered tiles

Mr Gilmour said the latest find was “really unusual” because it reads “Potentius fecit”, which translates as “Potentius made me”, or as some linguists would say, “I was made by Potentius”.

“They have actually written their name with their finger,” he said.

“It demonstrates that the tiler was literate – perhaps surprising for someone who was in a role usually carried out by an indentured servant… so they were higher status than we thought.”

He said his team had tried to find other examples of this kind of signature, but had not yet seen one.

“It’s not definitely the only example, but we have asked a lot of experts in the field so we are close to convinced there isn’t another one,” he said.

“The irony is the reason that we have got it is because it failed, it wasn’t even vaguely flat and wasn’t used on a villa or it wouldn’t have been in the tile rubbish tip.

“So he might have been literate, but he was maybe not so good a tiler.”

The indentations on another tile are believed to be the imprint of nails on the bottom of a woman’s sandal

Tilers also used to check every few tiles with their feet by tapping them lightly, to see if they were dry and ready to be fired. A second terra cotta coloured tile with small indentations is believed to be the imprint of nails on the bottom of a woman’s sandal, as it showed a very narrow foot shape.

“It looks like women were working in the tilery as well, so it’s not as clear cut as we thought,” Mr Gilmour said.

“The workers were not just young male slaves – these markings show there were literate men and women in nice shoes as well, so it was more of a mixture.

“There was definitely still a hierarchy… the man in the villa would have been in charge, but who the workers were is not clear cut.”

He added that the footprints of animals and imprints of leaves found in the tiles would also be studied, to find out whether the work was seasonal and what the environment was like.

Items found during excavation give an insight into Roman workers’ lives, archaeologists said

Mr Gilmour added that the finds in Corby showed the “possible scale” of the tile industry. During a second phase of work in 2021, they found an intact Roman road that shows how Corby joined up with surrounding settlements.

“It’s not uncommon to find a kiln next to a villa, but it would be a small one just for making tiles for the one villa,” he said.

“But at Corby they were producing tiles to sell to a wide area, which is a much more modern idea.

“The next step is scientifically examining them under a microscope to look at what’s in the clay, so that longer term we can see where they were moving them to.

“Was it two or three miles or across [the now] county or further?”

Priors Hall Park is a development of more than 5,000 new homes in Corby