Archaeology news

• Conference sheds light on 10 years of excavations at Petra Church, Temple of Winged Lions

  18-07-2019 21:58
  Excavations take time, money, planning, cooperation, conservation and publishing, said Director of the American Centre of Oriental Research (ACOR) Barbara Porter at a presentation on the Petra Church and the Temple of the Winged Lions on Monday.Temple of the Winged Lions, Petra (ca. AD. 25-363). Photograph taken from the east showingAFCP supported interventions completed in 2017 [Credit: Yusuf Ahmed/ACOR]The presentation titled,...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full link
  
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• Pre-Columbian stone figures with 'mysterios markings' point to 'lost civilisation' in Puerto Rico

  18-07-2019 21:55
  A puzzling cache of stone figures covered in mysterious symbols could be the first evidence of a "lost civilisation".The mystery carvings could hold the key to a lost civilisation[Credit: University of Haifa]The bizarre figurines were first discovered in the 19th century by a local monk who claimed he was led to the "secret stash" by a dying woman who lived in a hut in the Puerto Rican mountains.It was previously believed the...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links,
  
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• Cyprus Institute digitally documents churches in occupied north

  18-07-2019 21:45
  The Cyprus Institute (CI), in collaboration with the Byzantine Museum of Nicosia, has been tasked by the department of antiquities to digitally document the churches of Ayia Solomoni at Komi tou Yialou, Panayia Pergaminiotissa at Akanthou, Panayia Apsinthiotissa at Syghari, and the Christ Antiphonitis Church at Kalograia, all in the north of the island.Digital representation of Ayia Solomoni at Komi tou Yialou[Credit: Cyprus...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, o
  
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• Stone tool changes may show how Mesolithic hunter-gatherers responded to changing climate

  18-07-2019 21:29
  The development of new hunting projectiles by European hunter-gatherers during the Mesolithic may have been linked to territoriality in a rapidly-changing climate, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Philippe Crombé from Ghent University, Belgium.Reconstruction of a Mesolithic camp-site with a hunter in the front ready to fire an arrow
   mounted with stone microliths [Credit: Ulco Glimmerveen]As...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website fo
  
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• Huge prehistoric settlement exposed near Jerusalem

  18-07-2019 21:21
  A huge settlement from the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age), the largest known in Israel from that period, and one of the largest of its kind in the region, has been discovered during archaeological excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority near Motza Junction. The project was initiated and financed by the Netivei Israel Company (the National Transport Infrastructure company). The excavations are conducted as part of the Highway...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for ful
  
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• Community size matters when people create a new language

  18-07-2019 21:11
  Why are languages so different from each other? After comparing more than two thousand languages, scientists noticed that languages with more speakers are usually simpler than smaller languages. For instance, most English nouns can be turned into plurals by simply adding -s, whereas the German system is notoriously irregular. Linguists have proposed that languages adapt to fit different social structures.Credit: iStockphoto,...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, o
  
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• Centuries-old Nandi statues unearthed near Mysore

  18-07-2019 21:04
  A pair of centuries-old Nandi statues, carved out of monolithic soapstone, have been unearthed from a dried lake bed in Arasinakere, about 20 km from Mysore, a city in India's southwestern Karnataka state.Credit: Department of Archaeology, Museums and HeritageThe locals, particularly the senior citizens of the village, had earlier been aware of the presence of the Nandis, whose heads appeared to peep out partially whenever the water...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full
  
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• Six medieval ships unearthed in Norwegian capital

  18-07-2019 20:55
  Six ships from the Middle Ages have been uncovered in a series of excavations in central Oslo, providing researchers with new knowledge on Norwegian maritime history.Credit: Lars Dønvold-Myhre/NRKThe ships dating from between the 1300s to the 1600s, were unearthed in the modern Bjørvika district situated at the Oslo Fjord in connection with urban development and the construction of a high-speed railway.(adsbygoogle =...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full li
  
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• Fabled Crusader moat outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls

  18-07-2019 20:42
  Archaeologists have discovered an 11th-century moat just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls—the first hard evidence of a fabled Crusader siege against the city 920 years ago. Attested to in several historical documents, many scholars nonetheless believed the siege was a myth.The excavation near the Old City's southern wall [Credit: Virginia Winters/
  Israel Nature and Parks Authority]The groundbreaking find was made as part of the...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website
  
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• A new look at the Gibraltar Neanderthals

  18-07-2019 20:32
  Modern DNA sequencing techniques are allowing us to discover more about some iconic Neanderthal skulls than ever before.The adult female Neanderthal cranium discovered at Forbes Quarry, Gibraltar[Credit: Natural History Museum]Two skulls from Gibraltar were among the first Neanderthal remains ever found, and have since become some of the best-studied human fossils in the world.One was found at Forbes' Quarry in 1848, and one at a...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full lin
  
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• Slender-billed albatross skull from Pliocene discovered in New Zealand

  18-07-2019 20:24
  Senckenberg ornithologist Gerald Mayr, in conjunction with his colleague Alan Tennyson of the Te Papa Museum in New Zealand, describe a previously unknown, extinct albatross species from the Pliocene. The bird, which lived about 3 million years ago, only reached approximately 90 percent of the size of the smallest modern albatrosses.Nearly complete fossil skull of the new albatross species (above) in comparison to the Black-footed...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full li
  
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• Roman coin stash 'may have been linked to Boudiccan revolt'

  18-07-2019 20:17
  A hoard of Roman coins found in a field may have been hidden there during the Boudiccan revolt, an expert has said. The trove of 60 denarii, dating between 153BC and AD60-61, was found in a field near Cookley, in Suffolk, by a metal detectorist.The coins dated between 153BC and AD61 [Credit: Suffolk County Council]Dr Anna Booth, who examined the find, said there "might be a link with the Boudiccan revolt" and the coins. Queen...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links,
  
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• Grave of second king of Hungary found

  18-07-2019 20:08
  Scientists believe they have found the grave of Peter I Orseolo, second king of Hungary, in the crypt of the Cathedral. Peter and Paul in pécs in the South-West of the country.Excavation in the crypt of Pécs Cathedral [Credit: Tamás Sóki, MTI]No remains in the tomb were found, probably because they were intentionally displaced centuries later, writes the online edition of the Chronicle.info with reference to NV.(adsbygoogle =...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit
  
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• Ancient Scythian burial mound excavated in Russia's Stavropol

  18-07-2019 18:36
  Russian archaeologists have confirmed that the Scythians were present in the Ciscaucasia (northern Caucasus) in the last third of the 5th century BC, refuting the testimony of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who claimed that by that time they had left these lands. The scientists drew their conclusions by determining the date of the artefacts found in the mound near the village of Novozavodennoe. There are still a few excavated...[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full
  
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• Review – Hadrian’s Wall: history and guide

  18-07-2019 13:20 via archaeology.co.uk
  Guy de la Bédoyère
  Amberley Publishing, £18.99
  ISBN 978-1848689404
  Review Edward BiddulphAnyone
  visiting Hadrian’s Wall is well advised to take a guidebook. There are many
  available, but one of the most useful is Guy de la Bédoyère’s handy volume.
  Though a slim book, it is packed full of detail. The introduction provides the
  essentials of the Wall’s history, its construction, and the army that lived
  along it. A selection of epigraphic and other
  
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• Review – The Clayton Collection

  18-07-2019 13:19 via archaeology.co.uk
  Frances Claire McIntosh
  BAR Publishing, £38
  ISBN 978-1407321479
  Review Paul BoothThe
  importance of the Clayton Collection extends significantly beyond its home
  ground of Chesters (Cilurnum), though the focus of the present volume is on the
  material from Cilurnum. That is set in the context of Clayton’s ownership of,
  and interest in, the site; his position in the tradition of 19th-century
  antiquarianism; the formation of the Collection; and its subsequent
  development.
  The study focuse
  
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• Review – Hadrian’s Wall: everyday life on a Roman frontier

  18-07-2019 13:18 via archaeology.co.uk
  Patricia Southern
  Amberley Publishing, £12.99
  ISBN 978-1445690759
  Review Edward BiddulphAs the
  author herself asks, why do we need another book on Hadrian’s Wall? The
  question is conclusively answered over the course of the book’s 400 pages. It
  includes the standard sections on, for example, the history, construction, and
  purpose of the Wall, but it digs deeper than many volumes into the Wall’s
  management. The book takes a detailed look at Hadrian himself, examines the
  re
  
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• Review – Hadrian’s Wall at Wallsend

  18-07-2019 13:17 via archaeology.co.uk
  Paul Bidwell
  The Arbeia Society and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, £35
  ISBN 978-1527229969
  Review Edward BiddulphArchaeologists
  do not often get the chance to excavate Hadrian’s Wall. The monument is well protected
  by law (rightly so) and spared from development, meaning that invasive investigations
  are few and far between. While that is good news for the preservation of the
  Wall, it can make resolving long-standing questions about, say, construction or
  chronology difficult. The
  
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• Review – Hadrian’s Wall: a life

  18-07-2019 13:15 via archaeology.co.uk
  Richard Hingley
  Oxford University Press, £36.99
  ISBN 978-0198707028
  Review Matthew SymondsThe
  name Hadrian’s Wall may conjure up expectations of an opportunity to immerse ourselves
  in the Roman past, but it is a sensation that sells the archaeological monument
  short. The very fact that so much of it remains well preserved today emphasises
  that the Wall did not simply vanish at the close of the Roman period. Although attempts
  have been made to strip away later activity and present Rom
  
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• Review – Hadrian’s Wall: a study in archaeological exploration and interpretation

  18-07-2019 13:14 via archaeology.co.uk
  David J Breeze
  Archaeopress, £19.99
  ISBN 978-1789691672
  Review Edward BiddulphDavid
  Breeze’s new book on Hadrian’s Wall began as a series of lectures to the
  Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Even wonderful lectures do not always
  translate well to print, but there are no such fears with this volume, a
  (forgive the pun) breezy tour of the Wall and its study.
  In the first chapter, which looks at the
  historiography of the Wall, we meet such luminaries as John Collingwood Bruce,
  w
  
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• Interpreting Hadrian’s Wall

  18-07-2019 13:12 via archaeology.co.uk
  Vast arrays of sculpted and inscribed stone set the tone for the Clayton Museum – one of several English Heritage sites along Hadrian’s Wall that have been recently renovated and reinterpreted. ‘Curator’s Choice’ labels help to point out highlights among the many objects on display.
  How do you explain the latest thinking about a 73-mile-long monument to the public? Visitors to Hadrian’s Wall in recent years may have noticed some changes at the English Heritage
  
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