Category Archives: WORLD

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Saqqara Secrets: A Book Of The Dead Was Found Near Step Pyramid

Saqqara Secrets: A Book Of The Dead Was Found Near Step Pyramid

Saqqara Secrets: A Book Of The Dead Was Found Near Step Pyramid
A vintage illustration from the Papyrus of Ani, which dates to the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, circa 1250 B.C. There aren’t any released images of the newfound Book of the Dead papyrus found at Saqqara.

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 52-foot-long (16 meters) papyrus containing sections from the Book of the Dead. The more than 2,000-year-old document was found within a coffin in a tomb south of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. 

There are many texts from The Book of the Dead, and analysis of the new finding may shed light on ancient Egyptian funerary traditions.

Conservation work is already complete, and the papyrus is being translated into Arabic, according to a translated statement, which was released in conjunction with an event marking Egyptian Archaeologists Day on Jan. 14.

This is the first full papyrus to be uncovered at Saqqara in more than 100 years, Mostafa Waziry, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said, according to the statement. 

The Step Pyramid of Djoser was constructed during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser (ruled circa 2630 B.C. to 2611 B.C.) and was the first pyramid the Egyptians built.

The area around the step pyramid was used for burials for millennia. Indeed, the coffin that housed the newfound papyrus dates to the Late Period (circa 712 B.C. to 332 B.C.), Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of Antiquities, told Live Science in an email. Information about who owned the papyrus and its precise date will be announced soon, Hawass said. 

The Book of the Dead is a modern-day name given to a series of texts the Egyptians believed would help the dead navigate the underworld, among other purposes. They were widely used during the New Kingdom (circa 1550 B.C. to 1070 B.C.).

While 52 feet is lengthy, there are other examples of Book of the Dead papyri of that length or longer. “There are many manuscripts that would have been similar in length, but papyrus manuscripts of ancient Egyptian religious texts can vary quite dramatically in length,” Foy Scalf, the head of research archives at the University of Chicago, told Live Science in an email. Scalf, who was not involved in the latest discovery but holds a doctorate in Egyptology, noted that there are Book of the Dead scrolls that measure over 98 feet (30 m) long. 

Second papyrus

This appears to be the second papyrus containing texts from the Book of the Dead that has been found at Saqqara in the past year. In 2022, a 13-foot-long (4 m) fragmentary papyrus containing texts from the Book of the Dead was found at Saqqara in a burial shaft near the pyramid of the pharaoh Teti (reigned circa 2323 B.C. to 2291 B.C.). It had the name of its owner, a man named “Pwkhaef,” written on it. 

Despite being buried near pharaoh Teti’s pyramid, Pwkhaef lived centuries after the ruler.

The burial shafts where this papyrus was found date to the 18th and 19th dynasties of Egypt (1550 B.C. to 1186 B.C.). But the practice of being buried next to the pyramid of a former ruler was popular in Egypt at the time.

The discovery was made by a team of Egyptian archaeologists from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which has yet to release images of the ancient document. According to the statement, the papyrus will soon go on display in an Egyptian museum.

BELGIUM, EUROPE, WORLD

Roman Dodecahedron Fragment Found in Belgium

Roman Dodecahedron Fragment Found in Belgium

Roman Dodecahedron Fragment Found in Belgium
No one knows what the Roman dodecahedrons were for. Archaeologists think they probably had a religious or magical meaning.

A metal detectorist in Belgium has unearthed a fragment of a mysterious bronze artifact known as a Roman dodecahedron that is thought to be more than 1,600 years old. 

More than a hundred of the puzzling objects — hollow, 12-sided geometric shells of cast metal about the size of baseballs, with large holes in each face and studs at each corner — have been discovered in Northern Europe over the past 200 years. But no one knows why or how they were used.

“There have been several hypotheses for it — some kind of a calendar, an instrument for land measurement, a scepter, etcetera — but none of them is satisfying,” Guido Creemers, a curator at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium, told Live Science in an email. “We rather think it has something to do with non-official activities like sorcery, fortune-telling and so on.”

Creemers and his colleagues at the Gallo-Roman Museum were given the fragment by its finder and identified it in December. It consists of only one corner of the object with a single corner stud, but it is unmistakably part of a dodecahedron that originally measured just over 2 inches (5 centimeters) across.

The fragment found in a field near the town of Kortessem in Flanders is clearly part of a Roman dodecahedron.

Metal detectorist and amateur archaeologist Patrick Schuermans had found the fragment months earlier in a plowed field near the small town of Kortessem, in Belgium’s northern Flanders region.

Creemers said the Gallo-Roman Museum already displays a complete ancient bronze dodecahedron found in 1939 just outside Tongeren’s Roman city walls, and the new fragment will go on display next to it in February.

Archaeologists are now investigating the site where the metal detectorist found the dodecahedron fragment; it may have been the site of a Roman villa.

Mysterious dodecahedrons 

The first Roman dodecahedron to be discovered in modern times was found in England in the 18th century, and roughly 120 have been found since then in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

It’s not possible to date the metal itself, but some dodecahedrons were found buried in layers of earth that date them to between the first and fifth centuries A.D.

The mystery doesn’t end there; archaeologists cannot explain the geometric artifact’s function, and no written record of the dodecahedrons has ever been found. 

A complete Roman dodecahedron found near the ancient Roman walls of the town of Tongeren in Belgium in 1939.

It’s possible they were used in secret for magical purposes, such as divination (telling the future), which was popular in Roman times but forbidden under Christianity, the religion of the later Roman Empire, Creemers said. “These activities were not allowed, and punishments were severe,” he explained. “That is possibly why we do not find any written sources.” 

Several explanations for the mysterious artifacts have been suggested over the years. Initially, they were described as “mace heads” and were thought to be part of a weapon. Other ideas are that they were tools for determining the right time to plant grain; that they were dice, or other objects for playing a game; and that they were instruments for measuring distance, possibly for finding the right range for Roman artillery, such as ballistas. 

A recent suggestion is that dodecahedrons were knitting patterns for Roman gloves.

But most archaeologists think the objects were probably used in magical rituals. The dodecahedrons have no markings indicating how they were used, as might be expected for measuring instruments, and they all have different weights and sizes, ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 inches (4 to 11 centimeters) across.

Roman dodecahedrons are also found only in the Roman Empire’s northwestern areas, and many were unearthed at burial sites. These clues suggest that the cult or magical practice of using them was restricted to the “Gallo-Roman” regions — the parts of the later Roman Empire influenced by Gauls or Celts, according to Tibor Grüll, a historian at the University of Pécs in Hungary who has reviewed the academic literature about dodecahedrons. 

Ancient puzzle

Creemers said the dodecahedron fragment found near Kortessem could shed more light on these mysterious metal objects. Many other Roman dodecahedrons were first recognized for what they were in private or museum collections, so their archaeological context is unknown, he said.

But the location of the Kortessem fragment is well documented, he said; and subsequent archaeological investigations have revealed mural fragments at the site, indicating that it may have been a Roman villa.

A translated statement by the Flanders Heritage Agency said the fractured surfaces of the fragment indicate that the dodecahedron had been deliberately broken, possibly during a final ritual.

The location will now be monitored for further finds.

“Thanks to the correct working method of the metal detectorist, archaeologists know for the first time the exact location of a Roman dodecahedron in Flanders,” the statement said. “That opens the door for further research.”

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

2.3-meter sword found in 4th-century tomb in Japan

2.3-meter sword found in 4th-century tomb in Japan

The largest bronze mirror and the largest “dako” iron sword in Japan were discovered at the Tomio Maruyama burial mound in Nara.

Experts say the twin discoveries from the Tomio Maruyama Tumulus last November can be classified as national treasures, with the shield-shaped mirror being the first of its kind.

The Nara Municipal Buried Cultural Properties Research Center, which excavates and researches Tomiomaruyama kofun, and the Nara Prefectural Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, which assists in the excavation, announced the discoveries on Jan. 25.

The 2.3-meter sword with a meandering blade is also the largest iron sword made in that period in East Asia.

The patterned surface of the mirror carries the designs of two more common “daryu” mirrors, distinctive with its designs based on imaginative creatures, which have been found mainly in western Japan.

A team from Nara Prefecture examine the dakō iron sword found in the Tomio Maruyama burial mound.

The shield-shaped mirror is 64 cm in length, 31 cm in width at most, and weighs 5.7 kilograms. Typically, bronze mirrors that are found at archaeological sites are rounded, but this one is shield-shaped.

The sword is the oldest of the dako swords, distinguished by their wavy, snake-like shapes, which give rise to their name. As burial goods, more than 80 other dako swords have been discovered throughout Japan.

The latest sword has markings of a sheath and handle, and together, its length measures 2.6 meters, more than dominating the last longest dako sword discovered at around 85 cm.

“(These discoveries) indicate that the technology of the Kofun period (300-710 AD) are beyond what had been imagined, and they are masterpieces in metalwork from that period,” said Kosaku Okabayashi, the deputy director for Nara Prefecture’s Archaeological Institute of Kashihara.

A shield-shaped mirror discovered at the Tomio Maruyama burial mound in Nara

Mirror and shields are considered to be tools to protect the dead from evil spirits. The sword is thought to have been enlarged to increase its power, and the possibility of its use as a battle tool is low, researchers said.

The 109-m-diameter Tomio Maruyama burial mound, the largest in Japan and dating to the late 4th century, is believed to have belonged to a significant person who supported the Yamato rulers at the time.

The burial chamber where the discoveries were made is thought to have belonged to someone close to that person, according to Naohiro Toyoshima, an archaeology professor at Nara University. He also said that the ritualistic sword and the shield-shaped mirror may indicate that the individual was involved in military and ritualistic matters.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Rare Iron Age Wooden Axle Discovered in England

Rare Iron Age Wooden Axle Discovered in England

Rare Iron Age Wooden Axle Discovered in England
The axle fragment had been modified and reused as a stake to shore up the sides of a pit

Part of an “exceptionally rare” Iron Age wooden axle from a chariot or cart has been found in a waterlogged pit.

The fragment was uncovered in 2021 at Eastbridge, Suffolk, ahead of tree planting for the Sizewell C nuclear power station project.

Recent analysis revealed the hazel wood axle was made between 400BC and 100BC.

Archaeologist Chris Fern said it joins a handful of finds “from British later prehistory, such as the axle found at Flag Fen, Peterborough”.

It was discovered in a waterlogged pit, along with charred boards which might also have been part of the chariot or cart

The dig unearthed two Iron Age pits, which experts believe were most likely used as watering holes for livestock.

As they were waterlogged, they provided “ideal preservation conditions for wood”, said Mr Fern, a Cotswold Archaeology post-excavation manager.

The base of the axle had been broken, burned and reused and was found with charred boards, which might also have come from the same chariot.

Mr Fern said: “Most of the spindle – for the wheel hub – survives, as well as part of the rectangular axle-bed which would have been secured to the underside of the cart or chariot.”

The fragment has just been identified through analysis by dendrochronologist Michael Bamforth, a research associate at the University of York.

The axle had been repurposed in ancient times to prevent the collapse of the waterhole into the site’s sandy soil, Mr Fern said.

He added the axle” is an “exceptionally rare find”, which can “be viewed in the context of the famous chariot burials of the Iron Age in Britain, such as those from Wetwang, East Riding of Yorkshire”.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Roman-Era Residential Area Revealed in Luxor

Roman-Era Residential Area Revealed in Luxor

Archaeologists have discovered a residential area in Luxor dating to the time when the Roman Empire ruled Egypt. 

Roman-Era Residential Area Revealed in Luxor
Part of the Roman residential area that archaeologists uncovered in Luxor.

A team of archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities found a number of residential buildings, along with workshops and pigeon towers (where pigeons could be raised for eating), according to a ministry statement, which noted that this is the “first complete residential city” from the Roman Empire era found in east Luxor.

A variety of artifacts were also uncovered, including pottery, bells, grinding tools (often used for food preparation), and Roman coins made of copper and bronze.

The residential area is close to Luxor Temple, a large religious center built during the reigns of several pharaohs before the Roman Empire, including Amenhotep III, Ramesses II and Tutankhamun. But the residential area dates to much later, during the second and third centuries A.D. During this time, Egypt was a Roman province and Roman emperors were sometimes depicted as pharaohs. 

Some of the artifacts — including pottery, bells and Roman coins — found during excavation of the residential area.

The team found that when the Romans took over Luxor, they started raising pigeons by erecting pigeon towers containing pots that the pigeons could use as nests, the statement said. Pigeons are the descendants of rock doves (Columba livia), which breed on rocky, coastal cliffs; but towers can mimic cliff conditions, making the birds feel right at home.

Live Science contacted a number of scholars who were not involved with the research to get their thoughts. 

Susanna McFadden, a professor of art history at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in Greco-Roman art, called the finds “exciting news.” She is curious to learn how the team determined that the remains dated to the second and third centuries A.D. 

She also wonders if there could be a relationship between this settlement and a military camp that was active in the area during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian (reign circa 284 to 305). “It stands to reason that a residential area servicing the camp would have grown up outside the walls,” McFadden told Live Science in an email. 

The Roman residential area dates to the second to third centuries A.D.

Another scholar noted that this Roman residential area is not an entirely new find. The residential area in Luxor has “been known for a long time,” Jacek Kościuk, professor emeritus at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology in Poland, told Live Science in an email. 

Kościuk participated in excavations of Roman residential remains at Luxor that were carried out by an Egyptian-German team in the early 1980s. He sent Live Science two papers, published in 2011 in the journal Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte (Bulletin of the Coptic Archaeological Society), noting that while the 1980s team was able to survey only a small part of the settlement, they found the remains of Roman houses and baths. 

While the existence of the Roman residential area was already known, the recent excavations unearthed a large portion of it, which may shed new light on what Luxor was like in Roman times.

The new finds have “the potential to elucidate some critical research questions about Roman-era [Luxor], if the analysis is done carefully,” McFadden said. 

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

An ancient statue of Hercules emerges from Rome sewer repairs

An ancient statue of Hercules emerges from Rome sewer repairs

An ancient statue of Hercules emerges from Rome sewer repairs
The statue of Hercules found in the Appia Antica park.

An ancient Roman statue of Hercules has been discovered during repairs to the sewerage system underneath a park in Rome.

The statue, which apparently dates back to the Roman imperial period (27BC to AD476), emerged from the ground around the second mile mark along the ancient Appian Way, a famed historic road.

The Appia Antica Park announced on Facebook that the area “has reserved a great surprise for us: a life-size marble statue which, due to the presence of the club and the lion’s coat covering its head, we can certainly identify as a figure representing Hercules”.

The discovery was made during repair work on some sewer pipes that had collapsed, causing chasms and landslides.

The excavations reached a depth of 20 metres and, as often happens in Rome, were carried out with the presence of archaeologists.

In November last year an “exceptional” trove of bronze statues, preserved for thousands of years by mud and boiling water, was discovered in a network of baths built by the Etruscans in Tuscany.

The 24 partly submerged statues, which date back 2,300 years and have been hailed as the most significant find of their kind in 50 years, include a sleeping ephebe lying next to Hygeia, the goddess of health, who has a snake wrapped around her arm.

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

Do the Great Apes Share a Common Language?

Do the Great Apes Share a Common Language?

Humans share elements of a common language with other apes, understanding many of the gestures that wild chimps and bonobos use to communicate.

That is the conclusion of a video-based study in which volunteers translated ape gestures.

It was carried out by researchers at St Andrew’s University.

It suggests the last common ancestor we shared with chimps used similar gestures, and that these may have been a “starting point” for our language.

The findings are published in the scientific journal PLOS Biology.

Lead researcher, Dr Kirsty Graham from St Andrews University explained that this gesture-based way of communicating is shared by other species of great apes, including gorillas and orangutans.

“Human infants use some of these same gestures, too,” she told BBC News.

“So we already had a suspicion that this was a shared gesturing ability that might have been present in our last shared ancestor.

“We’re quite confident now that our ancestors would have started off gesturing, and that this was co-opted into [our] language.”

This study was part of an ongoing scientific mission to understand this language origin story by carefully studying communication in our closest ape cousins.

This team of researchers has spent many years observing wild chimpanzees. They previously discovered that the great apes use a whole “lexicon” of more than 80 gestures, each conveying a message to another member of their group.

Messages like “groom me” are communicated with a long scratching motion; a mouth stroke means “give me that food” and tearing strips from a leaf with teeth is a chimpanzee gesture of flirtation.

Translating apes

Scientists used video playback experiments, because the approach has traditionally been used to test language comprehension in non-human primates. In this study, they turned the approach on its head to assess humans’ abilities to understand the gestures of their closest living ape relatives.

Volunteers watched videos of the chimps and bonobos gesturing, then selected from a multiple choice list of translations.

The participants performed significantly better than expected by chance, correctly interpreting the meaning of chimpanzee and bonobo gestures over 50% of the time.

“We were really surprised by the results,” said Dr Catherine Hobaiter from St Andrews University. “It turns out we can all do it almost instinctively, which is both fascinating from an evolution of communication perspective and really quite annoying as a scientist who spent years training how to do it,” she joked.

The gestures people can innately understand may form part of what Dr Graham described as “an evolutionarily ancient, shared gesture vocabulary across all great ape species including us”.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

High-Tech Scans Reveal 17th-Century Dental Work

High-Tech Scans Reveal 17th-Century Dental Work

Scientists have discovered the long-buried secret of a 17th-century French aristocrat 400 years after her death: she was using gold wire to keep her teeth from falling out.

The body of Anne d’Alegre, who died in 1619, was discovered during an archaeological excavation at the Chateau de Laval in northwestern France in 1988.

Embalmed in a lead coffin, her skeleton — and teeth — were remarkably well-preserved.

At the time the archaeologists noticed that she had a dental prosthetic, but they did not have advanced scanning tools to find out more.

Thirty-five years later, a team of archaeologists and dentists have identified that d’Alegre suffered from periodontal disease that was loosening her teeth, according to a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports this week.

“Beyond the only therapeutic care and far from the only coquetry, this study shows also the importance of the appearance for aristocratic women submitted to strong social constraints (like stress or widowhood),” the study’s authors wrote. 

A “Cone Beam” scan, which uses X-rays to build three-dimensional images, showed that gold wire had been used to hold together and tighten several of her teeth.

She also had an artificial tooth made of ivory from an elephant — not hippopotamus, which was popular at the time.

The scientists said their paper “provides the first demonstration of a link between a diagnosis and a therapy on an identified individual using new digital technologies used in modern dentistry.”

But the ornate dental work only “made the situation worse,” said Rozenn Colleter, an archaeologist at the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research and lead author of the study.

The gold wires would have needed repeated tightening over the years, further destabilizing the neighboring teeth, the researchers said.

D’Alegre likely went through the pain for more than just medical reasons. There was huge pressure on aristocratic women at a time when appearance was seen as related to value and rank in society.

Ambroise Pare, a contemporary of d’Alegre’s who was the doctor for several French kings and designed similar dental prosthetics, claimed that “if a patient is toothless, his speech becomes depraved,” Colleter told AFP.

A nice smile was particularly important for d’Alegre, a “controversial” twice-widowed socialite “who did not have a good reputation,” Colleter added.

D’Alegre lived through a troubled time in French history.

She was a Huguenot, Protestants who fought against Catholics in the French Wars of Religion in the late 1500s. By the age of 21, she was already widowed once and had a young son, Guy XX de Laval.

When the country plunged into the Eighth War of Religion, d’Alegre and her son were forced to hide from Catholic forces while their property was seized by the king.

Her son then converted to Catholicism and went to fight in Hungary, dying in battle at the age of 20. After being widowed a second time, d’Alegre died of an illness aged 54.

D’Alegre’s teeth “shows that she went through a lot of stress,” Colleter said.

The researcher said she hopes that the research “goes a little way towards rehabilitating her.”

Severe periodontal diseases are estimated to affect nearly a fifth of the world’s adults, according to the World Health Organization.