Hadrian's Wall

Nice intro article about Hadrian's Wall:

...Brought into being by decree of the Emperor Hadrian, during his tour of Britain in 120AD, the main purpose of the wall was to prevent the northern areas of the Roman province of Britannia from being over-run by Pictish tribes from the north, and also spasmodic sea-borne attacks by Danish and Norse raiding parties, who went ‘a-viking’ when the spring brought better sea conditions for their longboats.

Narmer Discovery

Huge discovery, possible early Narmer Pharaoh hieroglyphs discovered:

"...Based on the symbols of power and control in the carvings, Gatto and her colleagues believe the artwork came from the first part of Narmer's reign, before he unified both parts of Egypt...

DIY Lego Antikythera

I love this fascinating devise. Now someone has built on from Legos!

Pompeii being destroyed AGAIN!

Latest Pompeii collapse: Garden wall gives way

This is so sad. It seems Italy is having real difficulty conserving its remarkable history:

...A stretch of garden wall ringing an ancient house in Pompeii gave way Tuesday after days of torrential rain, the latest structure to collapse at the popular archaeological site...

This is the third in a string of recent collapses.

More pics here.

Purrrrfect Discovery

Cat Goddess Bastet Temple: Egypt Announces Find Of Ancient Temple

The Temple of Bast in Alexandria has been discovered:

Mohammed Abdel-Maqsood, the Egyptian archaeologist who led the excavation team, said the discovery may be the first trace of the long-sought location of Alexandria's royal quarter. The large number of statues depicting Bastet found in the ruins, he said, suggested that this may be the first Ptolemaic-era temple dedicated to the cat goddess to be discovered in Alexandria. This would indicate that the worship of the ancient Egyptian cat-goddess continued during the later, Greek-influenced, Ptolemaic period, he said. Statues of other ancient Egyptian deities were also found in the ruins, he added.

Another "Stonehenge" discovered

Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles
It's hard to believe that another Stonehenge-like complex has remained hidden all these years. But aerial photography of some peculiar 'crop circles' has revealed just that:

...For such a site to have lain hidden for so long is "completely amazing," said Wickstead, of Kingston University in London. Archaeologist Joshua Pollard, who was not involved in the find, agreed. The discovery is "remarkable," he said, given the decades of intense archaeological attention to the greater Stonehenge region. "I think everybody assumed such monument complexes were known about or had already been discovered," added Pollard, a co-leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project...

Cleopatra's Tomb may be found

Cleopatra's Tomb Believed To Be At 1 Of 3 Egyptian Archaeological Sites

A find of coins bearing Cleopatra's image and a mask of Antony my point the way to the famous lover's tomb:

...Archaeologists looking for the tombs of the celebrated queen of Egypt and the Roman general will begin excavating three sites at a temple where tombs may be located, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement Wednesday.

Always the defender of all things ancient Egyptian, Zahi Hawass chimes in, attacking a recent reconstruction of Cleopatra by a British team:

...Zahi Hawass, Egypt's top archaeologist, said the Cleopatra statue and coins _ which show an attractive face _ debunk a recent theory that the queen was "quite ugly. The finds from Taposiris reflect a charm ... and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive," said Hawass, according to the statement.


The British scientists based their reconstruction on Roman coins, which may have portrayed a less than flattering image of the Queen. But I'm with Hawass on this one: Cleopatra was HOT!

Going to Babylon

Beyond Babylon

This weekend I'm visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a number of our Coven members. I'm particularly excited about the "Beyond Babylon" exhibit. There was a good review of it in the NYTimes entitled "Global Exchange, Early Version". From the article, something I'm really looking forward to seeing:

"...a ceramic goddess with wings and talons for feet is an exuberant arrival from cultural sources unknown...Referred to by archaeologists as “The Queen of the Night,” she is so hybrid a creation that she was at one time labeled a fake. She is now considered authentic, but authentically what is the question..."

A good portion of the exhibit focus on the remarkable artifacts recovered from a ship wreck:

...For a truly cornucopian example of multiculturalism, though, nothing matches the contents of the Late Bronze Age merchant ship recovered from the sea off the southern coast of Turkey...it probably sank around 1300 B.C., packed with cargo representing a dozen cultures, from Nubia to the Balkans...Although the ship’s home port is unknown, it appears to have traveled a circular route through the Mediterranean and Aegean, stopping in Greece, Crete, Turkey, Syria and Egypt, picking up and unloading as it went. Bulk materials included copper ingots, Cypriot pottery, African wood and Near Eastern textiles, all for waiting markets...Divers also found luxury items, possibly personal possessions of the ship’s crew and passengers. Examples of ivory containers in the form of ducks have parallels with Egyptian prototypes, but were probably made in Mediterranean Asia. The two sources merge in a figure found in a tomb: a nude female swimmer with a chic, Nile-style pageboy who is hitching a ride behind an ivory-headed bird...

Follow the link for the NYTimes article for a pic of the swimmer and her bird friend.

Changing Museum Policies

How Did That Vase Wind Up in the Metropolitan?

I've blogged before about the repatriation of pilfered artifacts . Today there's an Opinion piece in NYTimes by Sharon Waxman, who is the author of “Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World.”. It seems the new director of the MET (Thomas Campbell) has the opportunity (according to Sharon Waxman) to set a new course when dealing with artifacts of dubious origin. New guidelines are being issued by and association of museums:

...This past summer, the association finally issued new guidelines, which recognize that buying unprovenanced antiquities encourages their illicit trade and recommend that its members purchase only antiquities that can be proven to have been legally exported after 1970, or else removed from their country of origin before that date. (It was in 1970 that Unesco adopted an international convention barring the illegal export and transfer of cultural property....

Sharon Waxman continues:

...The Metropolitan needs to come clean about its past of appropriation of ancient art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And it needs to tell a much fuller story about its more recent role in purchasing looted and smuggled antiquities...

She feels the new director of the MET, Thomas Campbell, can:

...inaugurate a new era of transparency for all museums, and to recalibrate the Met’s relations with countries that feel aggrieved...By publicly acknowledging the controversial or otherwise dubious histories of some artifacts and by making the recent past as much a part of the artifacts’ stories as the ancient past, Mr. Campbell can set an example for all museums and build new bridges of respect and cooperation...Transparency may not end every demand for repatriation. But it will disarm those critics in source countries who know — but rarely acknowledge — that regardless of past transgressions, their treasures may be safer, better preserved and more widely adored in the world’s great museums like the Met...

First soul discovered: 800 BC

Found: An Ancient Monument to the Soul

Good King Kuttamuwa left his soul entombed in a stone structure, so people could leave offerings and party with it. How cool is that!

"...In a mountainous kingdom in what is now southeastern Turkey, there lived in the eighth century B.C. a royal official, Kuttamuwa, who oversaw the completion of an inscribed stone monument, or stele, to be erected upon his death. The words instructed mourners to commemorate his life and afterlife with feasts “for my soul that is in this stele..."

“...Normally, in the Semitic cultures, the soul of a person, their vital essence, adheres to the bones of the deceased,” said David Schloen, an archaeologist at the university’s Oriental Institute and director of the excavations. “But here we have a culture that believed the soul is not in the corpse but has been transferred to the mortuary stone...”

As pointed out in the article, there's similarities here to the Ancient Egyptian belief in our spiritual essence to be divided in to two halves, a soul-like personality containing 'ba', and a life-force spirit known as the 'ka'.

New Pyramid discovered...MAALESH!

In the Shadow of a Long Past, Patiently Awaiting the Future

"Maalesh", in modern Egyptian means 'never mind' or 'Oh, well". That seems to be the attitude of many Egyptians regarding the unearthing of a new pyramid in Gaza. This pyramid was built for Queen Sesheshet, mother of Pharaoh Teti. But many modern Egyptians are ambivalent:

"...Can you believe our government can do nothing for us, and this thing that was built thousands of years ago is still helping me feed my family?" Ahmed Sayed Baghali, 49, said as he sat in a plastic chair selling postcards to tourists outside the Egyptian Museum here, which
displays millenniums of antiquities. "Who would buy my things if they were not about the pharaohs? People come here from very far to see the pyramids, not to see Cairo..."

The above article points out that the country has numerous problems with infrastructure and government services. Officials change, but that can mean different things to different people:

"...When other people talk about hoping to see something happen soon, they probably mean within the next few months," said Salem, an Egyptian playwright. "For an Egyptian, it could mean in the next 50 or 60 years. An Egyptian has a particular pace. His pace is
different than an American's. And a long history can do this..."

But Egyptians have patience and sometimes see humor in the slow pace of change:

"...A man without history is a man without humor," said Galal, an economist and author who has written about Egypt’s modern decline. "A man with history is more likely to have humor, because he is more likely to see the irony in things, how things were and how they turned out to be. And patience..."

Maybe "whatever" would be a better translation of "maalesh"?

Ramses II head uncovered

In Egypt, a 3,000-year-old find

More signs that Horus, the son of Egypt and Africa, will soon ascend the throne:

...CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Egypt's antiquities council says that archaeologists have unearthed a 3,000-year-old red granite head believed to portray the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Ramses II...the 30-inch-high head belonged to a colossal statue of Ramses II that once stood in the area. Its nose is broken and the beard that was once attached to the king's chin is missing...the site at Tell Basta was dedicated to the cat-goddess Bastet and was an important center from the Old Kingdom until the end of the Roman Period...

More Greek art returns home

Greece Welcomes Return of Antiquities

I previously blogged about the return of a krater and two acroliths. It's great to see this happening more and more:

...On Wednesday Greece celebrated the return of two rare antiquities, Reuters reported. The items, a bronze vase from the fourth-century B.C. and the upper part of a marble tombstone, have been put on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens...Archaeologists previously feared the pieces would never be reunited. “Fortunately, the archaeologists’ prediction was wrong,” Michalis Liapis, the culture minister, told reporters at the museum...

Back from Salem II: Houses that Drip Blood

The 'Must Sees' of Salem:

The Witch House: This is the only standing building directly tied to the "Salem Witch Hysteria" still in Salem. The house belonged to Magistrate (Judge) James Corwin, a major player in the events of 1691/92. (His wife, Elizabeth, was accused at one point but the charge was never taken seriously.) The building is beautiful and the interior fascinating. Since this is an officially registered historic site, the tour guides are well prepared. Of course, as with many such exhibits in Salem, your visit ends when you are plopped down into a gift shop. Some are better than others, but the Witch House gift shop--although small--is well stocked with carefully selected items. Most are relevant to the time period of the trials. There's also a good selection of books and music. Coming home with one of their hand made tin lanterns or metal candle holders is worth the price of admission alone.

The House of the Seven Gables: This is the house made famous by author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was friendly with the family that owned the house and he spent much time there. It became the inspiration for his famous novel "The House of the Seven Gables". (Johnathan Hathorne, a relative of Nathaniel, presided over--rather zealously--the Salem Witch trials. This fact so much embarrassed and shamed Nathaniel that he added a 'w' to his last name in order to distance himself from his family.)

Witch Dungeon Museum: An interesting two part exhibit. First you are lead through a reconstruction of the jail used to house many of the accused. The cells are hideously small, sometimes a dozen prisoners being crammed into a room the size of the bathroom for a studio apartment. It's no wonder some prisoners died in custody. Conditions were hot and filthy, people having to endure there for months. Next you are lead into a theater where a portion of one of the trials is reenacted. Although brief, the performance is riveting.

Cry Innocent: A wonderful play incorporating audience participation. You become part of pre-trial hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to try accused witch Bridget Bishop. You even get to ask questions of town officials and witnesses. There's a note of historical accuracy here, that although pre-trial hearings were usual private affairs with officials and the parties involved, the witch trial hearings were open to the public.

Above is a pic of The Witch House. More soon...

Unique Burial Site discovered in Sahara

Graves Found From Sahara’s Green Period

An ancient burial site has been discovered in the Sahara, belonging to people who occupied the area from 10,000 to about 5,000 years ago:

...In its first comprehensive report, published Thursday, the team described finding about 200 graves belonging to two successive populations. Some burials were accompanied by pottery and ivory ornaments. A girl was buried wearing a bracelet carved from a hippo tusk. A man was seated on the carapace of a turtle...

Some of the skeletons and funerary belongings are very well preserved. Perhaps most remarkable is the discovery of what appears to be a family buried together (pictured above):

...The most poignant scene was the triple burial of a petite woman lying on her side, facing two young children. The slender arms of the children reached out to the woman in an everlasting embrace. Pollen indicated that flowers had decorated the grave...

The NYTimes has a great slide show, documenting some of the finds and excavation. I really would love to read the original paper. One thing I could tell about these fascinating people though--I bet they were polytheists, like us. Heh!

Is Hatshepsut still hiding?

DNA tests to study tiny mummies from King Tut tomb

This article is about the upcoming DNA testing on two infant mummies found in King Tutankhamun's tomb. But the part that interests me the most concerns Hatshepsut. I've blogged on the discovery of her body before ( here and here). The Discovery Channel special on the testing of unidentified mummies, in the quest to find Hatshepsut's remains, was certainly interesting. But there are now some problems. The media savvy Head of Egyptian Antiquities, Zahi Hawas has not exactly been forthcoming about his results:

...He has never disclosed the full outcome of the examinations of the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful queen and the only female pharaoh. Nor has he submitted the results for a test by second lab, as it is a common practice. This has raised concerns about the validity of the Egyptian results...

In the last year, I've been reading of increasing concern in regards to the above. The thing is, even just a careful watching of the televised special reveals some concerns. First off, a great deal of the identification relies on a scan of a supposed tooth fragment imaged in an unopened canopic box. The box has been accurately attributed as containing the organs of Hatshepsut, and the mummy id'ed as her body is missing a tooth. But that seems rather flimsy evidence. (The box remains unopened, so we don't even know if the object is indeed a tooth.) In addition, Hatshepsut has always been portrayed as rather a petite woman. Yet this mummy is large and obese. In addition, a number of mummies from the Tuthmosis line have been accurately identified, all of them having rather similar facial appearances. Although a forensic match-up was provided in the documentary, the fact is, at least to my eyes, the faces don't really match up.

Hands off the Astrolabe!

British Museum buys medieval astronomy tool

A mere toy when compared to the Greek Antkythera Mechanism:

...LONDON - A rare astronomy tool that helped medieval scientists tell time will remain in Britain after the British Museum scrambled to come up with the money to buy it. The brass device, called an astrolabe quadrant, had been sold at auction last year, and the museum was outbid. But money from the National Heritage Memorial fund, The Art Fund and the British Museum Friends helped the museum purchase it recently for 350,000 pounds ($700,000)...

But seriously, it's sad that museums have to scramble to scrape up funds to preserve national treasures. Astrolabes were a critical tool in astronomy and astrology. A similar situation is happening at the world's libraries. Over at Wildhunt, there's an interesting post about the possible breakup of an occult book collection:

"...A remarkable collection of rare and ancient volumes on the arts of magic and summoning ghosts could be broken up and sold off due to a funding crisis. The Harry Price Library of Magical Literature, based at the University of London, is the UK's largest of its kind ...

Neanderthals liked their veggies

Neandertals Ate Their Veggies, Tooth Study Shows

Although not a complete surprise, it's good to have evidence that Neanderthals were not obligate meat eaters:

...Tiny bits of plant material found in the teeth of a Neandertal skeleton unearthed in Iraq provide the first direct evidence that the early human relatives ate vegetation, researchers say...

Coprolites of the Gods

Evidence Supports Earlier Date for People in North America

The exact date when humans first entered the Americas has been a long running controversy in archeology. Now, there's some new evidence pushing the date back to at least 14,000 years before the present:

...Exploring Paisley Caves in the Cascade Range of Oregon, archaeologists have found a scattering of human coprolites, or fossil feces. The specimens preserved 14,000-year-old human protein and DNA, which the discoverers said was the strongest evidence yet of the earliest people living in North America...Other archaeologists agreed that the findings established more firmly than before the presence of people on the continent at least 1,000 years before the well-known Clovis people...

The Clovis people existed between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago. For many years, this was the excepted date of North American colonization.

...Michael R. Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University who was not part of the team, said, “Paisley Caves adds to the growing body of archaeological evidence that people were here prior to Clovis...

Fossil doody to the rescue!

Hatshepsut's Honor Guard

Spanish team unearths a unique find in Luxor on excavations in the necropolis of Ancient Thebes

Archeologists unearthed the tomb of a high ranking official from the Court of Queen Hatshepsut:

...A team led by a Spanish archaeologist has discovered the burial chamber of an Egyptian warrior who died four thousand years ago...the excavation site is at Dra’ Abu el-Naga, where the team’s investigations are centred on the tombs of Djehuty and Hery, two high-ranking dignitaries of the court of Hatshepsut...The tomb discovered in the necropolis is that of Iqer, whose name was found inscribed on the wooden coffin which contained his mummified body. His name means ‘the excellent,’...