Ancient Genomes Trace the Origin and Decline of the Scythians
Ancient Genomes Trace the Origin and Decline of the Scythians
Because of their interactions and conflicts with the major contemporaneous civilizations of Eurasia, the Scythians enjoy a legendary status in historiography and popular culture. The Scythians had major influences on the cultures of their powerful neighbors, spreading new technologies such as saddles and other improvements for horse riding. The ancient Greek, Roman, Persian and Chinese empires all left a multitude of sources describing, from their perspectives, the customs and practices of the feared horse warriors that came from the interior lands of Eurasia.
Still, despite evidence from external sources, little is known about Scythian history. Without a written language or direct sources, the language or languages they spoke, where they came from and the extent to which the various cultures spread across such a huge area were in fact related to one another, remain unclear.
The Iron Age transition and the formation of the genetic profile of the Scythians
A new study published in Science Advances by an international team of geneticists, anthropologists and archeologists lead by scientists from the Archaeogenetics Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, helps illuminate the history of the Scythians with 111 ancient genomes from key Scythian and non-Scythian archaeological cultures of the Central Asian steppe. The results of this study reveal that substantial genetic turnovers were associated with the decline of the long-lasting Bronze Age sedentary groups and the rise of Scythian nomad cultures in the Iron Age. Their findings show that, following the relatively homogenous ancestry of the late Bronze Age herders, at the turn of the first millennium BCE, influxes from the east, west and south into the steppe formed new admixed gene pools.
The diverse peoples of the Central Asian Steppe
The study goes even further, identifying at least two main sources of origin for the nomadic Iron Age groups. An eastern source likely originated from populations in the Altai Mountains that, during the course of the Iron Age, spread west and south, admixing as they moved. These genetic results match with the timing and locations found in the archeological record and suggest an expansion of populations from the Altai area, where the earliest Scythian burials are found, connecting different renowned cultures such as the Saka, the Tasmola and the Pazyryk found in southern, central and eastern Kazakhstan respectively. Surprisingly, the groups located in the western Ural Mountains descend from a second separate, but simultaneous source. Contrary to the eastern case, this western gene pool, characteristic of the early Sauromatian-Sarmatian cultures, remained largely consistent through the westward spread of the Sarmatian cultures from the Urals into the Pontic-Caspian steppe.
The decline of the Scythian cultures associated with new genetic turnovers
The study also covers the transition period after the Iron Age, revealing new genetic turnovers and admixture events. These events intensified at the turn of the first millennium CE, concurrent with the decline and then disappearance of the Scythian cultures in the Central Steppe. In this case, the new far eastern Eurasian influx is plausibly associated with the spread of the nomad empires of the Eastern steppe in the first centuries CE, such as the Xiongnu and Xianbei confederations, as well as minor influxes from Iranian sources likely linked to the expansion of Persian-related civilization from the south.
Although many of the open questions on the history of the Scythians cannot be solved by ancient DNA alone, this study demonstrates how much the populations of Eurasia have changed and intermixed through time. Future studies should continue to explore the dynamics of these trans-Eurasian connections by covering different periods and geographic regions, revealing the history of connections between west, central and east Eurasia in the remote past and their genetic legacy in present day Eurasian populations.
Press release from Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena on the new study that helps illuminate the history of the Scythians with 111 ancient genomes from archaeological cultures of the Central Asian steppe.
Ancient Egyptian manual reveals new details about mummification
Ancient Egyptian manual reveals new details about mummification
Based on a manual recently discovered in a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus, University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt has been able to help reconstruct the embalming process used to prepare ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. It is the oldest surviving manual on mummification yet discovered.
In ancient Egypt, embalming was considered a sacred art, and knowledge of the process was the preserve of very few individuals. Most secrets of the art were probably passed on orally from one embalmer to the other, Egyptologists believe, so written evidence is scarce; until recently, only two texts on mummification had been identified.
Egyptologists were therefore surprised to find a short manual on embalming in a medical text that is primarily concerned with herbal medicine and swellings of the skin. The manual has recently been edited by University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt:
- Many descriptions of embalming techniques that we find in this papyrus have been left out of the two later manuals, and the descriptions are extremely detailed. The text reads like a memory aid, so the intended readers must have been specialists who needed to be reminded of these details, such as unguent recipes and uses of various types of bandages. Some of the simpler processes, e.g. the drying of the body with natron, have been omitted from the text, Sofie Schiødt explains. She adds:
- One of the exciting new pieces of information the text provides us with concerns the procedure for embalming the dead person's face. We get a list of ingredients for a remedy consisting largely of plant-based aromatic substances and binders that are cooked into a liquid, with which the embalmers coat a piece of red linen. The red linen is then applied to the dead person's face in order to encase it in a protective cocoon of fragrant and anti-bacterial matter. This process was repeated at four-day intervals.
Although this procedure has not been identified before, Egyptologists have previously examined several mummies from the same period as this manual whose faces were covered in cloth and resin. According to Sofie Schiødt, this would fit well with the red linen procedure described in this manuscript.
Four was the key number
The importance of the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg manual in reconstructing the embalming process lies in its specification of the process being divided into intervals of four, with the embalmers actively working on the mummy every four days.
- A ritual procession of the mummy marked these days, celebrating the progress of restoring the deceased's corporeal integrity, amounting to 17 processions over the course of the embalming period. In between the four-day intervals, the body was covered with cloth and overlaid with straw infused with aromatics to keep away insects and scavengers, Sofie Schiødt says.
The Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg
The manuscript, which Sofie Schiødt has been working on for her PhD thesis, is the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg - so called because one half of the papyrus belongs to the Louvre Museum in Paris and the other half is part of the University of Copenhagen's Papyrus Carlsberg Collection. The two parts of the papyrus originally belonged to two private collectors, and several sections of it are still missing. Based on the palaeography, that is, the sign forms, the six metre long papyrus is dated to approximately 1450 BC, which means that it predates the only two other examples of embalming texts by more than a thousand years.
The bulk of the papyrus, which is the second-longest medical papyrus surviving from ancient Egypt, deals with herbal medicine and skin illnesses. Specifically, it contains the earliest-known herbal treatise, which provides descriptions of the appearance, habitat, uses, and religious significance of a divine plant and its seed as well as a lengthy treatise on swellings of the skin, which are seen as illnesses sent forth by the lunar god Khonsu.
The papyrus is planned for publication in 2022 as a collaboration between the Louvre Museum and the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection. Sofie Schiødt's PhD thesis "Medical Science in Ancient Egypt: A translation and interpretation of Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg (PLouvre E 32847 + PCarlsberg 917)", was defended 8 February 2021.
The embalming process
The embalming, which was performed in a purpose-built workshop erected near the grave, took place over 70 days that were divided into two main periods - a 35-day drying period and a 35-day wrapping period.
During the drying period, the body was treated with dry natron both inside and outside. The natron treatment began on the fourth day of embalming after the purification of the body, the removal of the organs and the brain, and the collapsing of the eyes.
The second 35-day period was dedicated to the encasing of the deceased in bandages and aromatic substances. The embalming of the face described in the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg belonged to this period.
The entire 70-day embalming process was divided into intervals of 4 days, with the mummy being finished on day 68 and then placed in the coffin, after which the final days were spent on ritual activities allowing the deceased to live on in the afterlife.
Press release from the University of Copenhagen on the ancient Egyptian manual on mummification.
Scientists find evidence of the oldest gynaecological treatment on record, performed in ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago
Scientists find evidence of the oldest gynaecological treatment on record, performed in ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago
Scientists from the Universities of Granada and Jaén are studying the physical evidence found in the mummified remains of a woman who suffered severe trauma to the pelvis in 1878–1797 BC, linking them to a medical treatment described in various Egyptian medical papyri of the time
During the Qubbet el-Hawa Project, led by the University of Jaén (UJA) in Aswan (Egypt), in which scientists from the University of Granada (UGR) are participating, researchers have found evidence of the oldest gynaecological treatment on record, performed on a woman who lived in Ancient Egypt some 4,000 years ago and died in 1878–1797 BC.
During the 2017 archaeological dig organised in Qubbet el-Hawa, on the western bank of the River Nile, Andalusian researchers found a vertical shaft dug into the rock in tomb QH34, leading to a burial chamber with ten intact skeletons.
Mummification techniques were not very effective at that time, at least at this site in Upper Egypt. However, the individuals buried there generally belonged to the upper classes of society meaning that they would have been given special care. These particular mummies are very well-preserved and are wrapped in thick layers of linen strips, sometimes bearing remnants of dried soft tissue.
“The mummies had grave goods (usually necklaces of different types); in some cases, their faces were covered with cartonnage masks; and they were preserved inside two rectangular sarcophagi, one inside the other. These featured hieroglyphic inscriptions and were typically badly damaged due to termite infestation,” explains Miguel Botella, forensic anthropologist and Emeritus Professor at the UGR, who conducted the analyses.
The last mummy buried
One of the mummies excavated by the team of anthropologists was perhaps the last to be buried in the chamber. It belonged to a woman of high social class, whose name, Sattjeni, has been preserved in the remains of the outer coffin. That name must have been common among the upper classes of the region, perhaps explaining why she was named Sattjeni A.
Between her bandaged legs, in the lower part of the pelvis and beneath the linen wrappings, the researchers found a ceramic bowl with signs of use, containing charred organic remains. The analysis of the skeletal remains was carried out by a team of anthropologists from the UGR (coordinated by Professor Botella) and it confirmed that the woman had survived a serious fracture in her pelvis, perhaps caused by a fall, which must have caused severe pain.
It is highly likely that, to alleviate these pains, the woman was treated with fumigations, as described in medical papyri of the time describing solutions to gynaecological problems.
“The most interesting feature of the discovery made by the researchers from the University of Jaén is not only the documentation of a palliative gynaecological treatment, something that is quite unique in Egyptian archaeology, but also the fact that this type of treatment by fumigation was described in contemporary medical papyri. But, until now, there had been no evidence found to prove that such treatment was actually carried out,” explains the UJA’s Dr. Alejandro Jimenez, an expert in Egyptology and director of the Qubbet el-Hawa Project. This work has now been published by one of the most prestigious academic journals in Egyptology, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Spracheund Altertumskunde.
The project was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Research, Fundación Gaselec, Fundación Palarq, the Calderón Group, and the Spanish Association of Egyptology.
Press release from the University of Granada on the mummified remains of a woman in Aswan (Egypt) who suffered severe trauma to the pelvis and received gynaecological treatment.
Archaeologists unearth huge Phoenician defensive moat
Archaeologists unearth huge Phoenician defensive moat
Wide and intact, it helped fortify the defensive nature of the area, noticeably increasing its ability to resist attacks.
With a depth of three meters and over eight meters tall, the discovery of a defensive moat in the walled Phoenician site of Cabezo Pequeño del Estaño, located at the Alicante province town of Guardamar del Segura, strengthened the defensive capabilities of the village. The new archaeological dig, which is being conducted these days at the site, is framed within the General Research Plan of the Education, Culture and Sport Council of the Valencia Region government, promoted by the town hall of Guardamar del Segura and by the INAPH archaeological research institute of the University of Alicante (UA).
One of its head archaeologists from the INAPH, Fernando Prados, has classified the outstanding finding of the moat at this Phoenician walled site as “enormous and intact”. Works are being directed by Prados; also partaking are Antonio García, director of the Archaeological Museum of Guardamar Segura; José Gambín, architect at the same town and doctor Helena Jiménez, lecturer of Ancient History at the University of Murcia. The work team is rounded out with the participation of researchers in training and technicians from the UA.
Finding the defensive moat
Excavating the fortification is making it possible to obtain a comprehensive view of the defensive structure, obscured until now by sedimentary accumulation and the harmful effects of erosion and the quarry, which destroyed 75% of the village in the 90s (20th century). An aerial photo preserved prior to this destruction revealed the potential existence of a defensive moat that traversed the hill parallel to the lines of the wall. The excavation has confirmed this fact by revealing the moat, which was handmade; one can see marks of chisels in the rocky substrate.
With a depth of around three meters and a width of over eight at its tallest part, this device strengthens the defensive nature of the village, providing heightened defence in the event of attacks. Together with the existing one in the Castillo de Doña Blanca, in Cádiz, it is the only one with these attributes preserved in the western Mediterranean area from its time.
Once more, as happens with the spectacular wall of this site, the closest known parallels are found in the Near East, in Phoenician cities such as Tell Dor or Beirut (today the capital of Lebanon).
The exceptional nature of this finding confirms the essential role of Cabezo Pequeño del Estaño as the spearhead of the Phoenician colonial policies between the 9th and 8th Century BC. The uncertainty and hostility that these settlers experienced upon arriving at the Iberian coast led them to erect a fortification large enough to fulfil their interests at the mouth of the Segura river: to harness the resources, mainly metallurgic.
Press release from Asociación RUVID
Stephen Fry, the 100th Lego Classicist
Stephen Fry, the 100th Lego Classicist
Yet another great announcement for the classicists who love LEGO. The well-known Australian historical archivist Liam D. Jensen, AKA The Lego Classicist, is informing us about the revealing of the 100th entry in this rich and precious collection of classicists.
This time, the coveted acknowledgment will go to the world-famous British star Stephen Fry.
Fry has starred in theatre plays, full length pictures and TV series; besides, all throughout his career he's been a film director and scriptwriter, a TV host, a journalist and a book author.
An important part of his writing activities is indeed focused on the subject of mythology; we had the honour of interviewing Stephen Fry on this occasion.
You wrote many books on the subject of myth. Where does this interest start, and what inspires you?
Mythology, but specifically Greek myth, gripped me from the first. I had liked fairy stories well enough when young, as most children do, but I sensed straight away that myths were somehow different, they came from a different place, they could be “taken to be true” in a certain kind of way that was stronger than fantasy. I think it was the personalities in Greek myth that so beguiled me. Without being conscious in any way of what myth is – where it comes from, who thought the stories up – I think it was clear to me that they had a truth and a depth too them that was more imperishable and somehow more important than, for example, Snow White and Rapunzel on the one hand, or the Hobbit and Narnia on the other. I have no wild objection to author-created fantasy worlds, but they could never reach me the way stories of myth could and still do.
What does it mean for Stephen Fry to popularize and/or retell a subject?
Goodness, I am not sure. I suppose in my wildest moments of self-belief and optimism I might hope that I combined enough of an ability to animate and entertain with enough authority and knowledge too - such a combination allowing people simultaneously to enjoy what I write but also to feel in some sense enriched by the confidence that they were (perhaps for the first time, or at least for a long time) drawing from the same narrative waters that so many generations of our ancestors had drawn. I get such pleasure when people tell me that they finally felt able to connect dots between — for example — Apollo and Hermes or the Titans and the Olympians, or that they feel familiar with characters whose names had often seemed remote and forbidding, Clytemnestra, say or Antigone. What once had been rather academic sounding names were at last knowable. Most of all, I hope to have taken away the scent of chalk dust and the stuffy school room...
How have your studies on English literature influenced your choices and your activities?
It’s impossible to say: I suspect that the traces of a lifetime’s love of reading will have left their mark in all kinds of ways that I cannot necessarily know or define. I think that a sense of irony (by which I mean something more than mocking irony, sarcasm or a sense of cosmic irony) is crucial to full human social development. An ironic mind is one that understand how to adopt another point of view, how to substitute (like a kind of social algebra) different ways of thinking, how to lay the patterns from one form of discourse on another (I know that doesn’t sound very clear, but I hope you get what I mean). The opposite of a ironising mind is a literalist mind, a dangerous and all too common presence in our world as larger and larger proportions of society rise in the world in new generations, sadly it seems unequipped with the ability to think ironically (such an ability presupposes the gift to think logically and imaginatively for you cannot be an ironist without a rigid sense of logic coupled with the ability to penetrate the knowledge and experience of others). My friend Matt D’Ancona put it very well when writing about another friend, the late Christopher Hitchens: “The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind … unlike rigid ideology and fundamentalism, irony – saying one thing while meaning another – helps us to recognise complexity, paradox, nuance and absurdity.” And nothing, I would suggest, allows for this facility more than an exposure to literature and drama.
In your book Heroes: Mortal and Monsters, Quests and Adventures, you wrote again about classical mythology, and of vices and virtues of the Gods. How do you imagine a fictitious Olympus?
Well, I am sorry to have to break it to you, but an Olympus peopled by quarrelling and fractious gods is a fiction. When you climb Mount Olympus in Greece you will find nothing but a very cold, damp, cloudy and rocky empty space. No gods there at all. The idea that there ever were gods there is … well, if not fictitious then mythical. We can think about what we mean by the difference. A fiction is fabricated by an individual mind, or occasionally a group of collaborating minds. A myth is fabricated by a whole society. Myths can be called, as Joseph Campbell did, “public dreams” or, if you prefer Carl Jung’s phrase, they are expressions of a “collective unconscious”. The collective unconscious of the Greeks, in my view, is so appealing because it understands that if the world is majestic, beautiful, awe-inspiring, noble and beautiful (as it clearly is) then the gods must be all those things …. BUT, the Greeks also knew that if the world is brutal, cruel, capricious, unjust, ugly and savage then the gods must be all those things too. Therefore, for the first time in human story-telling, the Greek pantheon is presented as one of personalities who are several things at once: mean but beautiful, cruel but fair, noble but capricious, etc etc etc. In other words, unlike so many other mythic cycles, the Greek one is filled with the ambiguities, inconsistencies and multiplicities of character that we find in our real lives. The very complexity, paradox, nuance and absurdity that I mentioned earlier. They are the first mythic cycle in our human history to have been shaped and reshaped by poets and dramatists to become a perfect blend of the religious, the literary, the dramatic, the visionary, the comic and the symbolic. They are, I think one can say therefore, a work of art.
Stephen Fry will be the 100th Lego Classicist, did you know the project already?
I had heard of it, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I might be the Lego Centenarian.
All Lego Classicist pictures courtesy Liam D. Jensen, The Lego Classicist.
Highest award from China's government for outstanding PhD research into ancient Chinese musical chime stones
A MUSIC archaeological study of ancient Chinese chime stones dating back to 2400BC to 8AD conducted by a PhD graduate from the University of Huddersfield has been deemed a remarkable achievement by the Chinese Government and has been conferred a coveted award.
Dr Xueyang Fang, from the city of Tianjin in north-eastern China, graduated this year with a PhD in music. Her extensive research, the first comprehensive study of its kind, has earned her the ‘Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad’ from the China Scholarship Council.
The award was set up in 2003 to honour overseas Chinese students with outstanding academic accomplishments and is the highest award Chinese Government can give to graduate students studying outside China. An estimated half a million Chinese students leave China to study abroad each year, making this prestigious award highly competitive.
“Only those with outstanding performance in their PhD studies are considered by the award selection panel and each year no more than 500 young talented researchers are granted this annual award,” said the China Scholarship Council’s Secretary-General, Sheng Jianxue.
“Xueyang Fang stood out from the competition and I would like to express my sincere gratitude for Professor Rupert Till’s support and conscientious supervision, which have contributed to her remarkable achievements,” he added.
A comprehensive and exhaustive analysis
Dr Fang’s thesis, supervised by Professor Rupert Till from the University’s Department of Music and Drama, is the first significant study of Chinese chime stones to be published in English and has created a new taxonomy, as well as collecting previous research published largely in Chinese.
On top of the comprehensive and exhaustive analysis of hundreds of specimens of chime stones, including their archaeological sites, periods and multiple categories of co-existent discoveries, Dr Fang’s fieldwork has produced a large amount of data that can be used for future research. This includes materials from Chinese museums and original sound recordings for analysis.
A journal article, written by Dr Fang in collaboration with Professor Till, explained how chime stones were often used in Royal court music performances, which were usually a combination of chime bells and other musical instruments and often represented high-ranking status in ancient Chinese society, especially in pre-imperial China.
Their cultural and ritual significance
In China, chime stones have important cultural and ritual significance and were significant enough to be buried with ruling people and so were a core symbol for social rank and authority.
“Burying these stones with this individual was clearly a significant act,” said Dr Fang, when referring to an excavation of nine chime stones found in an Eastern Zhou Tomb in Hebi, China between 2009 and 2010.
“Returning these stones to the ground has perhaps extra poignancy, in the knowledge that they have remained intact and indeed in tune, while their owner’s body has decomposed,” she added.
The European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP)
Dr Fang was initially prompted to pursue advanced study in the UK after reading numerous articles written by Professor Till, an affiliate of the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) and the Associate Dean International for the School of Music, Humanities and Media.
For the EMAP series, Professor Till recorded a wide range of ancient European instruments and investigated the acoustics of the places where they were once played. These included the Tombs of the Kings, a World Heritage Site in Cyprus and the Isturitz caves in France, where artefacts discovered included a pre-historic bone flute.
As a result of his research, she began to explore the journey of music archaeology with profound interest and says deciding to carry out her PhD at the University of Huddersfield, under Professor Till’s supervision, was the best decision she ever made.
Throughout her doctoral research Professor Till encouraged Dr Fang to take part in several international conferences, such as the 10th Symposium of the International Study Group for Music Archaeology (ISGMA) held in Wuhan, China, the University of New York’s 14th Music Iconography Conference and the 15th Symposium of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Study Group on Music Archaeology in Slovenia.
“Through participation of these conferences, not only did my experience and self-confidence increase, but I also gained greater interdisciplinary knowledge during my periods of study,” she said.
“To anyone who is wondering whether to come and study here at the University, I want to implore that my Alma Mater will provide the platform you need to succeed, whatever your plans for the future. I strongly recommend the University of Huddersfield for those who want to further their studies.”
Press release from the University of Huddersfield on the outstanding PhD research into ancient Chinese musical chime stones.
Cremation in the Middle East dates as far back as 7,000 B.C.
The gender of the human remains found inside a cremation pyre pit in Beisamoun, Israel remains unknown. What is known is that the individual was a young adult injured by a flint projectile several months prior to their death in spring some 9,000 years ago. Preserved due to it being buried, the pit represents the oldest proof of direct (1) cremation in the Middle East.
© mission Beisamoun
An international team lead by CNRS archaeo-anthropologist Fanny Bocquentin (2)with aid from PhD candidate Marie Anton and several experts in animal, plant, and mineral remains, discovered and studied the bones found inside the pyre. An analysis of the clay used to coat the inside of the pit showed the 355 bone fragments, some of which were burnt, were exposed to temperatures reaching 700°C. The position of the bones and the preserved joints seem to indicate the body was placed seated onto the pyre and was not moved during or after cremation.
© mission Beisamoun
Whether used as fuel, as ornamentation, or as a scent, siliceous traces indicated the presence of flowering plants, which made it possible to identify the season the person died. In addition to the exceptional pyre pit, the cremated remains of five other adults were discovered at the site. They dated back to the same period as burials whose traces were discovered among the ruins of abandoned dwellings.
The use of cremation indicates an evolution of the relationship to death in the region. The veneration of ancestors and lengthy funerary practices seem to have given way to shorter rituals. This could be evidence of a transition phase because, some two to three centuries later, the dead were no longer buried inside or near villages and their traces are much more difficult to find.
The study is based on joint archaeological digs completed between 2007-2016 by the CNRS, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Israel Antiquities Authority.
© mission Beisamoun
Emergence of corpse cremation during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: A multidisciplinary study of a pyre-pit burial, Fanny Bocquentin, Marie Anton, Francesco Berna, Arlene Rosen, Hamoudi Khalaily, Harris Greenberg, Thomas C. Hart, Omri Lernau, Liora Kolska Horwitz. PLOS ONE, 12 August 2020. DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0235386
Notes
(1) The body was cremated directly, as opposed to other practices where dried exhumed bones were burnt.
(2) Member of the Prehistoric ethnology team at the Archéologies et sciences de l'Antiquité laboratory (CNRS/Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/Université Paris Nanterre/French Ministry of Culture). This study also involved a PhD candidate from the Eco-anthropologie laboratory (CNRS/Museum national d’Histoire naturelle) with support from the Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem (CNRS/French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs/Aix-Marseille Université).
Press release from CNRS on the cremation pyre pit in Beisamoun, Israel, Middle East.
The Temple of Augustus: an artificial landscape in Surrey
The Temple of Augustus: How ruins from Libya became the focal point of an artificial landscape in Surrey
Walking around the artificial lake of Virginia Water, past the artificial cascade, you come across the ‘Temple of Augustus’, another artificial addition to the royal landscapes of Surrey. But how did these Libyan ruins come to make up part of the grounds of Windsor Great Park?
The city of Leptis Magna was founded in the 7th Century BC and rose to prominence in 193 AD under Emperor Septimius Severus who initiated a programme of enhancement through the provision of incredible docks, and a huge basilica complete with classical style columns. After his death in 211 the city began to decline, with the destructive tsunami of 365 and the invasion of the Vandals in the 5th Century.
1816, Hanmer Warrington arrived in Leptis Magna with friend, Augustus Earle. Only a few years earlier, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin had been hailed a hero by the British government on return from Greece with the stripped marble of the Parthenon, a response Warrington hoped to achieve with his presentation of the Leptis Magna ruins.
Louis XIV had taken 600 columns from the site and installed them in his palace in Versailles in the 17th century, whilst Rouen Cathedral and Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Preps in Paris also sported Leptis columns.
Upon commissioning ships and creating an agreement with the Local Governor, Warrington came across resistance of the local Libyan people. Not a conservation effort, but a local quarrying issue, they defied the removal of the ruins. Cut stone had often been collected from these sites to aid building work whilst round columns were used as mill stones. They took to destroying the collected ruins as they were being loaded onto ships, leading to 3 columns still lying on the beach, having been abandoned by Warrington’s team.
After the destruction was accounted for, Warrington collected a vast collection made up of 25 pedestals, 15 marble columns, 22 granite columns, 10 capitals, 5 inscribed slabs and fragments of stone and sculpture. On arrival in Britain he was met with an unenthusiastic government who it is said were not ‘at all impressed or convinced of the value, either aesthetic or intrinsic, of the cargo.’
Having sat in the forecourt of the British Museum for 8 years, King George IV’s architect, Jeffry Wyatville expressed an interest in using them to create a folly in the grounds of Windsor Castle, which then stretched as far as Virginia Water.
Named the ‘Temple of Augustus’, possibly as a reference to the King’s full name, George Augustus Frederick, the site consisted of the 15 columns arranged in a semi-circle, and 2 parallel colonnades. Down the centre of the ruins ran a carriage road, allowing King George IV to pass under the road to Ascot. Wyatville placed fragments of cornices along the bridge mimicking an arch in a city wall.
Knowledge of the classics was important in high society, and the introduction of follies, ornamental ruins built to serve purely as landscape features, showed a level of class and sophistication. As William Gilpin, contemporary architect, noted about the importance of a fake authenticity, “if the ivy refuses to mantle over your buttress… you may as well write over the gate, Built in the year 1772.”
All pictures taken by Scout Newby.
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Hyksos, 15th Dynasty rulers of Ancient Egypt, were an internal takeover
Hyksos, 15th Dynasty rulers of Ancient Egypt, were an internal takeover
Chemical analysis reveals Egypt was a multi-cultural hub for centuries
The Hyksos, who ruled during the 15th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, were not foreign invaders, but a group who rose to power from within, according to a study published July 8, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chris Stantis of Bournemouth University, UK and colleagues.
The Hyksos were a foreign dynasty that ruled parts of Egypt between approximately 1638-1530 BCE, the first instance of Egypt being ruled by individuals of a foreign origin. The common story is that the Hyksos were invaders from a far-off land, but this idea has been drawn into question. Archaeological evidence does link Hyksos culture with an origin in the Near East, but exactly how they rose to power is unclear.
In this study, Stantis and colleagues collected enamel samples from the teeth of 75 humans buried in the ancient Hyksos capital city of Tell el-Dab'a in the northeast Nile Delta. Comparing ratios of strontium isotopes in the teeth to environmental isotope signatures from Egypt and elsewhere, they assessed the geographic origins of the individuals who lived in the city. They found that a large percentage of the populace were non-locals who immigrated from a wide variety of other places. This pattern was true both before and during the Hyksos dynasty.
This pattern does not match the story of a sudden invasion from a single far-off land, but of a multi-cultural region where one internal group - the Hyksos - eventually rose to power after living there for generations. This is the first study to use archaeological chemistry to address the origins of the Hyksos rulers, but the authors note that more investigations and broader chemical techniques will be needed to identify the specific ancestries of the Hyksos and other non-local residents of Egypt.
Stantis adds: "Archaeological chemistry, specifically isotopic analysis, shows us first-generation migration during a time of major cultural transformations in ancient Egypt. Rather than the old scholastic theories of invasion, we see more people, especially women, migrating to Egypt before Hyksos rule, suggesting economic and cultural changes leading to foreign rule rather than violence."
First exhaustive analysis of use-wear traces on basalt tools from Olduvai
First exhaustive analysis of use-wear traces on basalt tools from Olduvai
The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución humana (CENIEH) has participated in an experimental study published recently in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, on the possible uses of tools fashioned from basalts, volcanic rocks that are highly abundant at the Olduvai Gorge sites in Tanzania, through the first exhaustive analysis of the relationships between the petrological characteristics of this raw material and the formation of use-wear traces.
In addition to providing elements of great significance for interpreting human behavior at Olduvai Gorge, the results of this research led by the archaeologist Patricia Bello-Alonso furnish a model which will enable comparative studies for lithic industry assemblages in volcanic rocks from different archaeological and geological contexts to be conducted.
“The results we have obtained are a fundamental resource for analyzing the ways stone tools were used at the archaeological sites located in Beds I and II, in general, and at the Thiongo Korongo (TK) site in particular as, in this area, volcanic rocks are one of the key raw materials for the technological and, therefore, evolutionary development of the different hominin groups that occupied Olduvai more than two million years ago”, explains Bello-Alonso.
Reference Collection
The main objective of the research, in which the Museo de Ciencia Naturales and the Instituto de Evolución Humana en África in Madrid also participated, was to determine how traces are formed in basalts at both the macro and micro scales, to enable their use to be identified. To do so, non-retouched flakes were employed and a wide variety of organic materials was worked upon: animal carcasses, tubers, wood, grass, cane and fresh bone.
“Carrying out these operations has allowed us to compile an experimental reference collection for greater understanding of the role played by the internal and chemical structure of basalts in the formation and development of use-wear traces”, she adds.
This multidisciplinary study, financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (HAR2013-45246-C3-2-P and HAR2017-82463-C4-2-P), under the auspices of The Olduvai Paleonthropology and Paleoecology Project (TOPPP) on the Acheulean site of TK, led by the researchers Joaquín Panera and Manuel Santonja, was conducted at the Prehistoric Technology and Archaeology Laboratory of the CENIEH and the Emiliano Aguirre camp, at Olduvai Gorge itself.
