Church of the Holy Redeemer, built 1035 to house a fragment of the True Cross.
I had not ever hear of the abandoned city of Ani until seeing Boogie Man’s photoessay.
Ani, located in Eastern Turkey, was in the 10th Century the capital of an Armenian principality. In its prime, the city’s population was similar in size (100,000—200,000) to Constantinople, Baghdad, and Cairo. It became the seat of the Catholicoi, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 992.
Ani was sacked by the Seljuk Turks in 1064, and by the Mongols in 1236. The city declined over subsequent centuries, ceasing to be a dynastic capitol around 1400, and losing the Armenian Catholicosate in 1441. Ani gradually dwindled to a small settlement within the walls of the former city, and was completely abandoned by the 18th century.
The site was excavated and documented by the Russian linguist and archaeologist Nicholas Marr 1892-93 and 1904-17.
Daily Mail reports that archaeologists using radar discovered a 120 m. (or 130 yard) long tunnel beginning under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in the ancient pre-Mexican city of Teotihuacan apparently sealed roughly 1800 years ago. The tunnel leads to three chambers likely to be burial vaults of some of the city’s former rulers.
Human remains of Bronze Age began turning up along the banks of the Tollense River, near Neubrandenburg on the Mecklenburg plain north of Berlin, in 1997.
More than 2000 bones representing the skeletal remains of 90 individuals, along with war clubs and the remains of horses, have been found, providing evidence of a battle fought here around 1250 B.C.
An article appearing in this month’s Antiquity (behind subscription screen) reports:
Chance discoveries of weapons, horse bones and human skeletal remains along the banks of the River Tollense led to a campaign of research which has identified them as the debris from a Bronze Age battle. The resources of war included horses, arrowheads and wooden clubs, and the dead had suffered blows indicating face-to-face combat. This surprisingly modern and decidedly vicious struggle took place over the swampy braided streams of the river in an area of settled, possibly coveted, territory. Washed along by the current, the bodies and weapons came to rest on a single alluvial surface.
The archaeological investigation does not seem to have turned up any metal weapons. Perhaps, metal swords and spear points were so valuable in the region in that period that they would have been carefully recovered at the time of the battle. The wooden weapons found, some examples described as resembling a baseball bat and a polo mallet, must have been used by common tribesmen, insufficiently wealthy to arm themselves with swords. History records pagan Baltic tribesmen from Samogitia going into battle against the Teutonic knights as late as the time of the battle of Grunwald in 1410 A.D. armed with knotted oaken war clubs in which flints had been embedded.
Who was fighting and what the conflict was all about are completely unknown, but the German researchers estimate that at least 200 men must have been killed in the course of a single action.
An Austrian residing in or near the city of Wiener Neustadt, referred to in news accounts only as “Andreas K.”, was digging to expand a small pond in his backyard garden in 2007 when he discovered a medieval horde of 200 pieces of jewelry, buckles, and silver plates embedded with precious stones, pearls, and fossilized coral.
The finder failed to recognize their value at the time, and simply placed all the objects in a box. He sold his house and moved in 2009, at which time he happened to glance in the box previously stored in the basement. The dirt covering the object had dried and begun to fall off revealing jewels and precious metals.
The finder made inquiries on the Internet and knowledgeable collectors advised him to contact the Bundesdenkmalamt Österreich (BDA), the Austrian Heritage Office.
The BDA press office released a news report on Friday, but it is obvious that the objects have yet to be seriously analyzed and evaluated.
Wired describes a newly published scientific paper offering a new form of human taxonomic classification. This development offers promise of assistance in treating gastrointestinal diseases and obesity and in more specifically personalizing medical treatment in general.
In much the same way that every person has one of eight common blood types, each of us may contain one of several possible bacterial communities, suggests new research. ...
In the latest study [Published Apr. 21 in Nature], [Mani] Arumugam, fellow EMBL bionformaticist Peer Bork and dozens of other researchers sequenced every gene they could find in fecal samples from 22 people from Denmark, France, Italy and Spain. Then they searched the data for patterns, looking to see if certain arrangements of bacteria tended to be found in certain people.
The search returned three distinctive “enterotypes,” or bacterial communities dominated by a distinct genus — Bacteroides, Prevotella or Ruminococcus — each of which is found with a particular community of bacteria (see picture above).
“One analogy that people draw — I don’t know how accurate it is yet — is blood type,” said Arumugam. “It’s not exactly the same. Blood types don’t change, but we don’t know if enterotypes do.”
Further analysis of microbiomes from 13 Japanese and four Americans returned the same three clusters, suggesting the patterns are widespread and unconnected to ethnicity, age or gender. With such a limited sample size, however, containing no microbiomes from South Asia, Africa, South America and Australia, it remains to be seen whether other enterotypes exist.
Beyond identifying the enterotypes, “anything we say now will be a hypothesis,” said Arumugam. In terms of function, each of the enterotype-defining genera has been linked to nutrient-processing preferences — Bacteroides to carbohydrates, Prevotella to proteins called mucins, or Ruminococcus to mucins and sugars — but far more may be going on.
“Exactly what they are doing in there is still to be explored,” said Arumugam.
The Pharoah Tutankhamen ruled Egypt for nine years, from approximately 1355 to 1346 BC. He ascended the throne at age nine, and he remained in power until his sudden death at age 18.
His tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt on November 22, 1922, by Howard Carter, who described the discovery thusly:
“At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flames to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.
For the moment – an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by – I was dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, ‘Can you see anything?’ it was all I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things.”’
Among the wonderful things found in Tutankhamun’s tomb were two trumpets, one silver and one bronze.
The shorter silver trumpet is in the key of B natural. The bronze trumpet from the tomb is about 3cm longer, and is in the key of A flat.
In 2001 the BBC broadcast a series of programmes about Verdi’s operas to mark the centenary of the composer’s death; in the programme about Aïda, the conductor Edward Downes explained how two groups play on very long trumpets during the Grand March, one in A flat and the other in B natural, which is very unusual.
He commented on the amazing coincidence that Verdi chose these extraordinary keys for his trumpets, 50 years before the tomb was discovered and about 3,200 years after the two very long trumpets were buried with Tutankhamun.
When rioting broke out recently in Cairo, the silver trumpet was away on display at a touring exhibition, but the bronze trumpet was one of the objects looted from the Cairo Museum. It was, however, recovered, a little later, found discarded in a bag with some other items stolen from the museum in a Cairo metro station.
The trumpets have only been rarely played since the time of their discovery, but a recording of the kind of sounds which once must have signaled the advance to battle of the infantrymen and chariots of the pharoahs in Antiquity was made in 1939 for the BBC.
The trumpets were played by Bandsman James Tappern of the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert’s Own).
The BBC story (characteristically and traditionally for journalistic pieces of this kind) ends with a bit of superstition.
Bandsman Tappern… played the trumpet shortly before World War II broke out. Cairo Museum’s Tutankhamun curator claims the trumpet retains “magical powers” and was blown before the first Gulf War, and by a member of staff the week before the Egyptian uprising.
But, which one?
One is inclined to guess the more opulent silver trumpet, but the bronze trumpet is longer, and reputedly more difficult to blow.
Dornier 17 bomber lying inverted in the Goodwin Sands.
A largely intact casualty of the Battle of Britain, a Dornier 17 fast bomber, referred to affectionately by the Germans as the Fliegender Bleistift “flying pencil,” was found two years ago when a fishing boat snagged its net on the wreck.
The RAF Museum plans to raise the aircraft and place it on display.
A rare German wartime bomber which was discovered on a sandbank 70 years after it was shot down during the Battle of Britain is to be raised, it was announced today.
The twin-engined Dornier 17 first emerged from Goodwin Sands, a ten-mile long sandbank off the coast of Deal, Kent, two years ago, a spokesman for the RAF Museum said.
Since then, the museum has worked with Wessex Archaeology to complete a full survey of the wreck site, usually associated with shipwrecks, before the plane is recovered and eventually exhibited as part of the Battle of Britain Beacon project.
An underwater side scan of a twin-engined Dornier 17 German wartime bomber, which has been discovered on a sandbank off Deal, Kent, 70 years after it was shot down during the Battle of Britainy
The spokeswoman said the aircraft – known as a Flying Pencil due to its sleek design and stick-like lines – was part of a large enemy formation which attempted to attack airfields in Essex on August 26, 1940 but was intercepted by RAF fighter aircraft above Kent before the convoy reached its target.
The plane’s pilot, Willi Effmert, attempted to carry out a wheels-up landing on Goodwin Sands but, although he landed safely, the aircraft sank.
He and one other crew member were captured but another two men died.
The spokeswoman said the plane was found in ‘remarkable’ condition considering the years it has spent underwater, and is largely intact with its main undercarriage tyres inflated and its propellers still showing the damage they suffered during its final landing.
University of York finds a surprisingly intact brain in Iron Age skull discovered during excavation for campus extension. Its original owner appears to have been sacrificed. Additional linkStill more.
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Nude photo of 24-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, taken by Roddy McDowell, found in private collection.
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Nice wall tentacle, but $1100 is much too high a price.
——————————————— New search underway for missing Amber Room.
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British newspaper reports on Brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) assault on 33 US states.
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Something on the order of 70 ancient lead codices were apparently discovered around five years ago in a cave in Jordan.
A scientific swindler preyed on American scientists working in Geology during a period extending from 1884 to 1891, obtaining books, specimens, and money from a number of American scholars. He had a good knowledge of Eastern European languages, was well acquainted with the field and frequently assumed the names of prominent authorities. By the time he vanished from history, he had also accurately identified large numbers of specimens in American museum collections.
Matthew Ridley, in the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Review, takes the occasion of the recent finding of an array of a very sophisticated chipped-stone fishing implements on Southern California’s Channel Islands to propose the idea that it was exploitation of maritime food-gathering opportunities that really constituted the evolutionary leap that made mankind human.
Last week archaeologists working on the Channel Islands of California announced that they had found delicate stone tools of remarkable antiquity—possibly as old as 13,000 years. These are among the oldest artifacts ever discovered in North America. To judge by the types of tool and bone, there was a people living there who relied heavily on abalone, seals, cormorants, ducks and fish for food.
This discovery fits a pattern. From the stone age to ancient Greece to the Maya to modern Japan, the most technologically advanced and economically successful human beings have often been seafarers and fish-eaters—and they still are, as the latest tsunami reminds us. Indeed, it may not be going too far to describe our species as a maritime ape.
Ridley might have put it slightly differently. He might have suggested that it was the discovery of fishing that made mankind human, and he could then have gone on to expand that theory by noting that the invention of the fishhook directly paralleled the invention of the arrowhead and proceeding to argue that it may have been the intellectual challenge resulting from our more northerly contact with the salmonids that deepened our intelligence, leading to the creation of artificial lures and fly fishing. The maritime ape ultimately evolved into the cultivated and civilized man and the dry fly purist.
The Bookworm has some thoughts on the morality and practical consequences of returning antiquities from Western museums to their lands of origin.
The narrative has long been in place: For centuries, the predatory West raped the ancient world — Egypt, Greece, the Fertile Crescent, Persia — of her culture. Greedy treasure hunters and archeologists stole her mummies, her statuary, her carvings, her jewels and her wall paintings. Their museums gained world renown because of these ill-gotten gains, while the countries of origin moldered, deprived not only of their natural riches, but also of their historic legacy. With the end of colonialism after World War II, the situation started righting itself, as now-properly abashed Western countries began returning these stolen treasures to their true homes.
The actual story is a bit different. The cultures that had created those treasures had long vanished by the time the Western collectors showed up and started sniffing around. Where once had been glory, now was abysmal poverty. More than that, there was a profound disinterest in the past. The citizens of Egypt, Greece, the Ottoman Empire, etc., cared nothing for the treasures beneath their feet. Those that they couldn’t see, they forgot; those that they could see, they recycled. They broke down ancient structures and used their stones to build their homes; they melted down ancient jewelry, and refashioned the gold in modern design. The Egyptian mummies to which thieves had easy access had long since vanished — some within days of being interred — especially since their wrappings made good paper and, for centuries, their dust was thought to have curative powers.
What made these remnants of the past valuable was the interest the West had in the ancient world’s past. To the Middle East, they were raw material; to the Westerners, things of beauty and wonder. And so the West took them away, to museums and private collections. In terms of what was happening in the Middle East 200 years ago or 100 years ago, Western activity was akin to digging in the garbage to collect someone else’s discards. The only thing that bespoke value in the regions themselves was gold, so the archeologists figured out that, if they gave to the fellahin who unearthed the ancient gold a sum of money equal to that object’s weight, the latter cheerfully parted with their cultural past.
The relics, once in the West, were treated with a reverence denied them in the lands from which they emerged. They were cleaned, restored, maintained, studied and much visited. And of course, as their status rose, the people who had so cavalierly parted with them realized that they had lost something of value. When they had achieved some measure of moral power, they demanded them back. Often, the West complied with those demands. ...
[M]any ended up back at home, in lands governed by dictatorships. These, no matter how long they last, invariably seem to end in a welter of violence, flames, vandalism and theft. Is it a surprise, then, that when a dictatorship ends, it’s often the case that the treasures, once ignored and abused, then revered in foreign lands, and then returned to their natal soil, should be amongst the first casualties?
Statue of 18th Dynasty Pharoah Akhenaton, circa 1336 BC, recently looted from Egyptian museum and found two weeks later discarded beside a garbage bin.
Riding a wave of liberal guilt and political correctness, Egyptian officials have demanded that Western museums generally empty their Egyptian exhibitions and return antiquities recovered by Western scholarship. Targets for such demands have included the Rosetta Stone currently in the British Museum, the Berlin Museum’s bust of Queen Nefertiti, and a number of reliefs depicting a journey in the Afterlife from the Louvre. Only the Louvre has so far capitulated to Egyptian demands.
It ought to have been obvious that irreplaceable art objects and antiquities are more accessible to larger audiences and to scholars, and considerably safer, in museums located in the West.
Hyperallergic has a collection of photographs of the damage to the Egyptian Museum from Aljazeera.
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This Red Alert from the security consultancy Stratfor suggests that security forces might have been behind the (clearly limited) vandalism to the museum, attempting to create a pretext, and support, for a crackdown on demonstrators.
The Egyptian police are no longer patrolling the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Hamas armed men are entering into Egypt and are closely collaborating with the [Muslim Brotherhood]. The MB has fully engaged itself in the demonstrations, and they are unsatisfied with the dismissal of the Cabinet. They are insisting on a new Cabinet that does not include members of the ruling National Democratic Party.
Security forces in plainclothes are engaged in destroying public property in order to give the impression that many protesters represent a public menace. The MB is meanwhile forming people’s committees to protect public property and also to coordinate demonstrators’ activities, including supplying them with food, beverages and first aid.
Far more Lancastrians died in the rout than in the battle itself. (Graham Turner painting)
As many as 75,000 men (10% of the fighting age male population of England) participated in the Battle of Towton.
The Lancastrians had the larger army and occupied the high ground, but the weather was against them, and proved decisive. The Lancastrian archers fired against a strong wind, blinded by the snow blowing in their faces, and their arrows fell fell short. Yorkist archers fired volleys which hit home, and then moved back out of range. Advancing again, they were able to retrieve their enemies’ arrows from the ground and fire them back at them. The Yorkist archers were able to repeat this same maneuver to great advantage.
Both sides had resolved before the battle that no quarter was to be given. The subsequent hand-to-hand fighting was exceedingly bloody. It was reported that soldiers had to move piles of bodies out of the way to get at the enemy. The fighting went on for hours with neither side gaining a decisive advantage until the Duke of Norfolk arrived with Yorkist reinforcements on the Lancastrian left.
Out-numbered and out-flanked, the Lancastrian left was broken and before long the entire Lancastrian line collapsed and routed. Troops fled toward the river, being cut down by cavalry along a path that became known as Bloody Meadow. The River Cock was in full flood. Many were trapped and cut down with the river against their backs, and hundreds drowned. It is said that some men were able to escape because they were able to cross the flooded river over the bodies of the fallen. Lancastrian deaths are estimated to have been as many as 28,000.
The Economist describes the results of some recent archaeological investigations of the battlefield burials found in the vicinity of Towton.
The remains commonly exhibit evidence of death by violence with extreme prejudice.
On the run from the battle, with Yorkist soldiers in pursuit (some of them doubtless on horseback), the men would have soon overheated. They may have removed their helmets as a result. Overhauled—perhaps in the vicinity of Towton Hall, which some think may then have been a Lancastrian billet—and disorientated, tired and outnumbered, their enemies would have had time to indulge in revenge. Even at this distance the violence is shocking. “It’s almost as if they were trying to remove their opponents’ identities,” says Mr Knüsel of the attackers’ savagery.
Take the case of the skull designated Towton 25:
THE soldier now known as Towton 25 had survived battle before. A healed skull fracture points to previous engagements. He was old enough—somewhere between 36 and 45 when he died—to have gained plenty of experience of fighting. But on March 29th 1461, his luck ran out.
Towton 25 suffered eight wounds to his head that day. The precise order can be worked out from the direction of fractures on his skull: when bone breaks, the cracks veer towards existing areas of weakness. The first five blows were delivered by a bladed weapon to the left-hand side of his head, presumably by a right-handed opponent standing in front of him. None is likely to have been lethal.
The next one almost certainly was. From behind him someone swung a blade towards his skull, carving a down-to-up trajectory through the air. The blow opened a huge horizontal gash into the back of his head—picture a slit you could post an envelope through. Fractures raced down to the base of his skull and around the sides of his head. Fragments of bone were forced in to Towton 25’s brain, felling him.
His enemies were not done yet. Another small blow to the right and back of the head may have been enough to turn him over onto his back. Finally another blade arced towards him. This one bisected his face, opening a crevice that ran from his left eye to his right jaw (see picture). It cut deep: the edge of the blade reached to the back of his throat.
The Daily Mail reports on an intriguing maritime mystery.
The remains of a ship dating from the 1600s [or earlier—DZ] have been discovered in the centre of Sweden’s capital.
The wrecked vessel, thought to be Russian, was stumbled upon by a labourer renovating a quay outside the Grand Hotel in Stockholm.
Archaeologists are particularly interested in a previous unknown technology used to build the boat.
The planks of the ship are not nailed down, but sewn together with rope. ...
‘We were super-excited. It may sound a little strange when one finds little excavated pieces of parts of a ship, but I have never seen anything like it,’ he said.
With the exception of another ship found in 1896, all other shipwrecks uncovered in and around the Stockholm harbour have featured planks that were nailed together. ...
‘We really know nothing about this technique other than that it was used in the east,’ Mr Hansson told The Local website.
Mr Hansson guesses that the ship is from east of the Baltic, possibly from Russia.
The ship’s position, well into the quay, reveals that it is from the 1600s or earlier.
The wreck was not necessarily linked to the yard, however, and archaeologists have been unable to say how long before 1700 it might have sunk.
Marine archaeologists will send samples to Denmark’s Copenhagen National Museum for analysis to be dated as precisely as possible, with results expected by January 2011.
