Archaeologists do it in holes: Tales from the stratigraphy

[viper37]

Some here might be aware of the Asian lake which is known to be home to many, many skeletons, usually believed to have died during a massive hail storm. Seems there's a wrinkle to the case: DNA says a number of the skeletons are Greek in origin, from 18th century. Interesting article about the research and the genetic vs archaeological side of the question:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/14/the-skeletons-at-the-lake

long read, but fascinating!
Thanks!

[jimmy olsen]

Golden tongues found in Hellenistic Egyptian mummies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/science/egypt-mummy-golden-tongue.html

[The Brain]

OK Lisa.

[Syt]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55977964

Syria 'finds body of archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad beheaded by IS'

Syrian authorities believe they have found the body of a top archaeologist who was killed by the Islamic State (IS) group in 2015 while he tried to protect the ancient city of Palmyra.

Militants publicly beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, 82, after he refused to disclose the location of valuable artefacts.

State media reported that his body was thought to be among three discovered in Kahloul, east of Palmyra.

DNA tests will be carried out to confirm their identities.

The brutal murder was one of a series of atrocities committed by IS militants during the two periods they were in control of the Unesco World Heritage site.

Khaled al-Asaad devoted more than 50 years of his life to Palmyra, which is located at an oasis in the Syrian Desert north-east of Damascus.

The highly-regarded archaeologist retired as the site's head of antiquities in 2003, but he continued to carry out research there until it fell to IS.

Three of his sons and his son-in-law, who are also archaeologists, escaped to the capital with hundreds of valuable artefacts from the museum in the nearby modern town of Tadmor as the militants approached. But Asaad insisted that he would not leave his home.

"I am from Palmyra," he said, "and I will stay here even if they kill me."

Asaad was later detained by IS and interrogated about the locations of other artefacts that had been hidden. He was beheaded in a square in Tadmor that August after refusing to co-operate.

Activists circulated a photograph purportedly showing his body tied to a pole, with a placard beside it accusing him of being Palmyra's "director of idolatry".

Unesco's then-Director-General, Irina Bokova, said at the time that IS had killed Asaad "because he would not betray his deep commitment to Palmyra".

In the weeks that followed the murder, IS destroyed several iconic parts of Palmyra from the 1st and 2nd Centuries that it considered idolatrous.

The Temple of Baalshamin and the cella and surrounding columns of the Temple of Bel were blown up, as were the ancient city's triumphal arch and seven funerary towers at its necropolis.

After recapturing the site in late 2016, militants destroyed the tetrapylon - a group of four pillared structures - and part of the Roman Theatre.

Government forces have controlled the area since March 2017, but reconstruction work has been limited because of the ongoing civil war.

IS once held 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from western Syria to eastern Iraq and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.

The group was driven from its last part of land in 2019, but the UN estimates that more than 10,000 militants remain active in Syria and Iraq.

They are believed to be organised in small cells and they continue to carry out deadly attacks in both countries.

[Jacob]

Fucking IS.

[Jacob]

Been watching this from the British Museum: https://youtu.be/zYk0GH5iFYI?list=PL0LQM0SAx601_99m2E2NPsm62pKoSCnV5

Sue Takes on the Sutton Hoo Helmet | Curator's Corner S6 E5

You didn't think Sue only did swords did you?

The excavations at Sutton Hoo during 1939 were unique for a number reasons. We're not sure the exact number of reasons (like Irving, maths really isn't our thing), but there were definitely enough for Netflix to make an original, dramatized version of it in the form of 'The Dig'. A ship burial of this level of wealth has not been found before or since in England, and excavations were conducted under the shadow of the United Kingdoms impending involvement in World War Two.

Though a great number of exceptional objects were found in the mound at Sutton Hoo, none have captured the public imagination like the Sutton Hoo helmet. And tonight, for the first time in 10 years, we got to get the incredibly delicate helmet out of its display case, and hopefully do it justice (it was incredibly intimidating to film with).

[Sheilbh]

Islamic 12th-century bathhouse uncovered in Seville tapas bar


The bathhouse was discovered in a popular tapas bar in the heart of Seville. Photograph: Paco Puentes/El Pais

Dazzling geometric motifs dating from Almohad caliphate discovered during renovation of city's bar
Sam Jones in Madrid
@swajones
Thu 18 Feb 2021 05.00 GMT

A magnificently decorated 12th-century Islamic bathhouse, replete with dazzling geometric motifs and skylights in the form of eight-pointed stars, has emerged, a little improbably, from the walls and vaulted ceilings of a popular tapas bar in the heart of the southern Spanish city of Seville.

Last summer, the owners of the Cervercería Giralda – which has been pouring cañas and copas near Seville's cathedral since 1923 – decided to take advantage of local roadworks and the coronavirus pandemic to set about a long-delayed renovation.

Although local legend and the odd historical document had suggested the site may once have been an ancient hammam, most people had assumed the Giralda's retro look was down to the neomudéjar, or Islamic revival style, in which the architect Vicente Traver built the bar and hotel above it in the early 1920s.

"There was talk that there were baths here, but not all the historians were convinced and some thought it was all much later," said Antonio Castro, one of the Giralda's four co-owners. "We were doing some works and got an archaeologist in, and that's how the baths were discovered."


The hammam discovered in Seville. Photograph: Álvaro Jiménez

The archaeologist, Álvaro Jiménez, knew of the rumours. But, like many others, he had always imagined them to be fanciful. One day last July, however, the team were gently chipping their way through the plaster that covered the ceiling when they uncovered a skylight in the form of an eight-pointed star.

"As soon as we saw one of the skylights, we knew what it was; it just couldn't have been anything but a baths," said Jiménez. "We just had to follow the pattern of the skylights."

Their explorations soon uncovered an exquisite piece of design dating back to the 12th century when the Almohad caliphate ruled much of what are now Spain and Portugal as well as a large swath of north Africa.

"Decoratively speaking, these baths have the largest amount of preserved decoration of any of the known baths on the Iberian peninsula," said the archaeologist.

"Absolutely everything here is decorated, and, luckily, it's survived. The background is white lime mortar engraved with geometric lines, circles and squares. On top of that you have red ochre paintings of eight-pointed stars and eight-petalled multifoil rosettes. Those two designs alternate and entwine and adapt to the different geometric shapes of the skylight holes."


Uncovered detail and decoration. Photograph: Álvaro Jiménez

While a lot of whitewash still needs to be cleaned to disclose the red paint beneath, the hammam-cum-bar has now been conserved and repaired and the Giralda is due to open once again in two or three weeks.

Jiménez, who described the "kind of a fateful alignment of different things", said the baths and the bar have "been reborn and become something wonderful; it was the right people, the right time, and a bit of luck".

Castro and his partners are looking forward to a new chapter in the Giralda's long history. But they are also toasting the foresight of Vicente Traver.

"This was a pretty well-known bar before, but now people will be able to come in and have a beer or a glass of wine in a bar that's also a 12th-century hammam," said Castro. "It's a good thing that the architect back in the 1920s respected the baths – others might have chucked everything out, so we're grateful to him."

[jimmy olsen]

Evidence of ancient slavs using germanic runic script?
https://www.rferl.org/amp/early-slavs-archeological-discovery-runes-alphabet-germanic-lany-czech/31110277.html

[Jacob]

Evidence of ancient slavs using germanic runic script?
https://www.rferl.org/amp/early-slavs-archeological-discovery-runes-alphabet-germanic-lany-czech/31110277.html

My impression is that the large ethno-cultural categories - slavic germanic, celtic - applied to ancient peoples is largely a backwards projection by 1800s romantic nationalists.

[Valmy]

If this was invented in the 1800s what was being referred to by Celts or Germans before then?

[Jacob]

If this was invented in the 1800s what was being referred to by Celts or Germans before then?

The Greeks and Romans applied the terms also, and were - as I understand it - fairly inconsistent in how they did so. I meant large part of our the content and significance of the categories "celtic", "germanic", and  "slavic" are derived from nationalist-romantic political projects of national and international identity and identification.

People tend to adapt practices, material culture, and languages from their neighbours. So while we can trace the evolution and spread of ideas and practices and genetic patterns those things don't necessarily line up with the large super-categories. Where we draw the lines - and the significance that we attribute to them - is fairly fraught, and is significantly derived from political concerns of the 1800s.

I mean, that's my understanding anyhow.

[Valmy]

I have never heard otherwise. I thought it was generally considered a set of basic shared language and cultures across an area.

[Valmy]

I mean the Greeks themselves were just a group of people with a shared set of related languages and cultures. Same with the Latins and Etruscans.

[Valmy]

Though after some thought I guess if people do think that somehow these generalized cultural groups were like nations or something that does explain the rather bizarre and weird fixation the French have on the Celtic tribes who lived in the transalpine Gaul. "Our ancestors the Gauls" as if there was:

1. Anything particularly French about being descended from Celtic tribes. I mean practically everybody in western Europe can claim that.

2. Anybody in what is today France that ever referred to themselves as "Gauls" except in a broad sense like we might think of ourselves as English speakers or something. And even then it was probably only a distinction they thought of when interacting with the Romans.

So that is a hold over from that time.

Also I realized that you were not really saying that there was not such a thing as Celtic or Germanic or Slavic cultured tribes just that it is not too surprising that a Slavic one would also have influences from Germanic tribes as, like you say, it was not like these were hard and fast rules. Just kind of a general cultural influence. The Slavic tribe would not be all "I am a proud Slav and thus would never use these Germanic writings! No sir" because that was not really a big part of identity in some kind of national sense.

[Jacob]

Though after some thought I guess if people do think that somehow these generalized cultural groups were like nations or something that does explain the rather bizarre and weird fixation the French have on the Celtic tribes who lived in the transalpine Gaul. "Our ancestors the Gauls" as if there was:

1. Anything particularly French about being descended from Celtic tribes. I mean practically everybody in western Europe can claim that.

2. Anybody in what is today France that ever referred to themselves as "Gauls" except in a broad sense like we might think of ourselves as English speakers or something. And even then it was probably only a distinction they thought of when interacting with the Romans.

So that is a hold over from that time.

Yeah exactly. And it's not just the French who're prone to that sort of thing.

Also I realized that you were not really saying that there was not such a thing as Celtic or Germanic or Slavic cultured tribes just that it is not too surprising that a Slavic one would also have influences from Germanic tribes as, like you say, it was not like these were hard and fast rules. Just kind of a general cultural influence. The Slavic tribe would not be all "I am a proud Slav and thus would never use these Germanic writings! No sir" because that was not really a big part of identity in some kind of national sense.