Tuesday, 21 January, 2003, 10:50 GMT
'Oldest star chart' found
The carvings have been interpreted as a star map
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500 years old.
The tiny sliver of mammoth tusk contains a carving of a man-like figure with arms and legs outstretched in the same pose as the stars of Orion.
The claim is made by Dr Michael Rappenglueck, formerly of the University of Munich, who is already renowned for his pioneering work locating star charts painted on the walls of prehistoric caves.
The tablet also contains mysterious notches, carved on its sides and on its back. These could be a primitive "pregnancy calendar", designed to estimate when a pregnant woman will give birth.
It was found in 1979 in a cave in the Ach Valley in the Alb-Danube region of Germany. Carbon dating of bone ash deposits found next to the tablet suggest it is between 32,500 and 38,000 years old, making it one of the oldest representations of a man ever found.
It was left behind by the mysterious Aurignacian people about whom we know next to nothing save that they moved into Europe from the east supplanting the indigenous Neanderthals.
The ivory tablet is small, measuring only 38 x 14 x 4 millimetres, but from the notches carved into its edges archaeologists believe that it was made that size and is not a fragment of something bigger.
On one side of the tablet is the man-like being with his legs apart and arms raised. Between his legs hangs what could be a sword and his waist is narrow. His left leg is shorter than his right one.
From what is speculated about the myths of these ancient peoples before the dawn of history, archaeologists have suggested that the man-like figure could be praying or dancing, or be a half-man, half-cat, or a divine being.
But Michael Rappenglueck thinks it is a drawing of the constellation of Orion that is nowadays, and was perhaps also 32,000 years ago, called the hunter.
The proportions of the man correspond to the pattern of stars that comprise Orion, especially its slim waist - which corresponds to its famous belt of three stars and the left "leg" of the constellation being shorter.
The "sword" on the ivory tablet also corresponds to a famous and well-know feature that can be seen in Orion.
There are also other indications that Dr Rappenglueck may be correct.
The stars were in slightly different positions 32,000 years ago because they are moving across the sky at different speeds and in different directions, a phenomenon called "proper motion".
Dr Rappenglueck allowed for this effect by using a computer program to wind back the sky and found evidence for a particular star in Orion that was in a different place all those years ago.
The tablet may also be a pregnancy calendar.
There are 86 notches on the tablet, a number that has two special meanings.
First, it is the number of days that must be subtracted from a year to equal the average number of days of a human gestation. This is no coincidence, says Dr Rappenglueck.
It is also the number of days that one of Orion's two prominent stars, Betelguese, is visible. To ancient man, this might have linked human fertility with the gods in the sky.
Orion is one of the most striking constellations. The Ancient Egyptians identified it with their god Osiris and it has a special significance for many cultures throughout history throughout the world.
Monday, 20 January, 2003, 17:47 GMT
Black pharaoh trove uncovered
By Ishbel Matheson
BBC, Nairobi
A team of French and Swiss archaeologists working in the Nile Valley have uncovered ancient statues described as sculptural masterpieces in northern Sudan.
The archaeologists from the University of Geneva discovered a pit full of large monuments and finely carved statues of the Nubian kings known as the black pharaohs.
The Swiss head of the archaeological expedition told the BBC that the find was of worldwide importance. The black pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty empire stretching along the Nile Valley 2,500 years ago.
Breathtaking
The pit, which was full of ancient monuments, is located between some ruined temples on the banks of the Nile. It had not been opened for over 2,000 years. Inside, the archaeologists made a breathtaking discovery.
The statues of the black pharaohs are highly polished, finely carved and made of granite. The name of the king is engraved on the back and on the feet of each sculpture. The head of the expedition, Charles Bonnet, described them as very beautiful. He told the BBC they were sculptural masterpieces. They were important not just for the history of Sudan but also for world art.
Savagely destroyed
The Nubians were powerful and wealthy kings who controlled large territories along the Nile. Their land was known as the Kingdom of Kush. They controlled the valuable trade routes along the river but were eventually conquered by their neighbours from the north.
The ancient Egyptians made the pit into which the monuments and statues were piled. Many of the sculptures were savagely destroyed, with smashed heads and broken feet. Professor Bonnet says that this shows that the Egyptians were not content with simply conquering Kush. They also wanted to obliterate the memory of the black pharaohs and their unique culture from the face of the earth.
Thursday, January 23, 2003. Posted: 21:01:28 (AEDT)
Ruins of 4,300-year-old prehistoric city found in China
Chinese archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a prehistoric city dating back an estimated 4,300 years in southwest Sichuan province, state press said.
The find provided evidence that the region along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, with the Chengdu Plain at the core, played an important role in the origin and development of Chinese civilization, experts said.
The ancient city of Yandian measures 700 metres from north to south and 500 metres from east to west, the Xinhua news agency reported.
It covers an area of more than 300,000 square metres.
Chen Jian, an official with the relics and archaeological team in the Sichuan capital Chengdu City, said the site is next to a river at an elevation of three metres above the river bank.
This indicated that ancient people considered the availability of water and flood prevention when deciding where to build cities, he said.
Archaeologists unearthed a number of pieces of inscribed pottery, polished stone axes, chisels and spears at the site.
They also found chips of human skulls on the city wall but were unable to explain how they got there.
Fire Guts Ancient Chinese Palace
Guardian
Tuesday January 21, 2003 7:30 AM
BEIJING (AP) - A centuries-old mountaintop palace in central China caught fire and was ``burned into ashes,'' a government preservation agency said Tuesday, eight years after the area was added to a U.N. list of cultural heritage sites.
The Yuzhengong Palace on the lush hillside of Wudangshan Mountain in Hubei province, a typical example of imperial architecture during the late Yuan (1271-1368) and early Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, caught fire at 7 p.m. Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
By the time the fire was extinguished 2 hours later, the UNESCO World Heritage Site structure was burned to the ground and ``nearby cultural relics were damaged,'' Xinhua said.
``It was burned into ashes,'' an official at Wudangshan's Historical Relics Bureau told The Associated Press. He would give only his surname, Wang, and had no monetary estimate of the damage.
He said the fire was still being investigated. No one was injured, Xinhua said.
The fire burned longer because the palace was high in the mountains and firefighters couldn't reach it quickly, Wang said.
The 600-year-old Yuzhengong Palace covered an area of more than 540,000 square feet. It was unclear exactly how many of its structures were damaged by the fire.
The United Nations' cultural agency said the palace complex, a group of secular and religious buildings, is primarily Taoist structures from the Yuan and Ming eras but contains architecture from as early as the seventh century.
``It represents the highest standards of Chinese art and architecture over a period of nearly 1,000 years,'' says a statement on the UNESCO Web site.
UNESCO's World Heritage List is designed to identify cultural and natural properties that are ``considered to be of outstanding universal value'' and help nations preserve such sites.
On the Net:
UNESCO Wudangshan site, http://whc.unesco.org/sites/705.htm
January 17, 2003
Explosive evidence found in a 13th-century shipwreck off the coast of Japan
BY NORMAN HAMMOND, ARCHAEOLOGY CORRESPONDENT
JAPANESE underwater archaeologists have found evidence of the great invasion fleet sent by Kublai Khan in the 13th century, which tradition says was destroyed by a kamikaze or “divine wind” sent by the Emperor’s deified ancestors to save Japan from its enemies. Only a small proportion of the force was Mongol, the evidence shows: the majority was drawn from conquered China, and used advanced weaponry including shrapnel-filled projectile bombs.
The discovery, by Kenzo Hayashida of the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology, follows years of patient searching of the sea bottom off the north coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. The site, in Imari Bay, was initially found by fishermen, whose nets brought up artefacts including the personal seal of a Mongol commander, inscribed in both Chinese and the Phagspa script used to write the Mongolian language after the descendants of Genghis Khan conquered China and needed to administer their empire.
Sonar surveys and diving over the past 20 years have brought up iron swords, stone catapult balls, spearheads and stone anchor weights, James Delgado, of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, reports in the American journal Archaeology this month. The granite used for the anchor on the newly discovered shipwreck shows that the ship came from Fujian on the south China coast, one of the marshalling points for the fleet that attacked Japan in 1281.
More than 4,000 ships and thousands of troops were furnished by the defeated Sung Dynasty, according to Chinese records, and Kublai Khan’s Korean allies were ordered to build 900 more and to provide 10,000 soldiers. An earlier invasion attempt, in 1274, reportedly involved 23,000 men shipped across the Strait of Tsushima from Korea; they established a bridgehead and looted the port of Hakata (modern Fukuoka), but withdrew with the loss of numerous ships and more than half the army, according to some sources.
When Kublai invaded again in 1281, the Japanese were ready and had fortified the coast. The Korean section of the Mongol fleet attacked without waiting for the much larger Chinese force, and while they pondered how to attack the Japanese defensive walls, were in turn raided by small craft carrying samurai warriors, and by fireships.
After the main Chinese fleet arrived, a sudden storm, which the Japanese hailed as a heaven-sent kamikaze, mauled the anchored ships, drowning nearly all the 100,000 troops on board. At the entrance to Imari Bay “a person could walk across from one point of land to another on a mass of wreckage”.
It is one of these ships that the archaeologists have been investigating. Dr Delgado reports “bright red leather armour fragments, an intact Mongol helmet, a cluster of iron arrow tips, and a round ceramic object, a tetsuhau or bomb”. Such grenades were pottery spheres filled with gunpowder, and although their use is portrayed on scrolls depicting Kublai’s invasion, the historian Thomas Conlan has recently suggested in his book In Little Need of Divine Intervention that these were later interpolations.
“His suggestion that the exploding bomb is an anachronism has now been demolished by solid archaeological evidence”, Dr Delgado says. The six tetsuhau so far recovered “are the world’s earliest known exploding projectiles and the earliest direct archaeological evidence of seagoing ordnance”. X-rays of one bomb show that it was filled with pieces of iron shrapnel as well as gunpowder.
In spite of the find’s importance, excavations were hurried because a fish farm was due to be constructed in Imari Bay, and only a fraction of the necessary conservation has yet been funded; Japan is still in economic recession. Although Kenzo Hayashida and Thomas Conlan agree that hundreds rather than thousands of wrecks lie in the bay, the find is “one of the greatest underwater archaeological discoveries of our time, proving critical new information about Asian seafaring and military technology”, according to Dr Delgado. The area also has patriotic resonance: out in the Strait of Tsushima, the tsarist fleet was obliterated in 1905, in a naval battle that established Japan as a major modern power.
Roman site points to a Greater Londinium
By David Millward
(Filed: 23/01/2003)
The map of Roman London will have to be redrawn after the discovery of a settlement including a palace or military headquarters about a mile outside the city walls.
A site roughly the size of a football pitch was found after the demolition of a theme pub in Shadwell, east of the Tower of London, which was previously thought to be Londinium's boundary.
Although it is still considered unlikely that London spilled outside its walls, the discovery of what archaeologists described yesterday as a "major status building" suggests significant development on the periphery.
"This completely rewrites the story," Alistair Douglas, who works for Preconstruct Archaeology, said yesterday.
"We knew there was archaeology here, but we did not expect something this big. This is very exciting. We started off with a very small trench, but we have had to keep going as we find more evidence."
Mr Douglas and his team were digging yesterday around what appears to be the remains of an underfloor roman heating system and possibly a plunge pool.
Walls 5ft high have already been found along with what appears to be the foundation of a substantial building.
"We don't know whether we are looking at an isolated building, which may have served as an inn, or a part of a much larger settlement," said Francis Grew, curator for archaeology at the Museum of London. "The fact that it is stone-built and not just a couple of barns is important and suggests it was permanent."
Although the remnants of the Roman city wall have enabled historians to have an idea of the boundaries of Roman London itself, centuries of development over the surrounding area have hidden evidence of what happened in its periphery.
The proximity of the site to the Thames, about a quarter of a mile to the south, has led Duncan Hawkins, the archaeologist supervising the dig, to believe that a port of some sort was established on a tributary of the river.
With the recent discovery of other artefacts across the Thames in Southwark, there is evidence to suggest that Roman London could have been a commercial centre served by ports to its east and south.
The latest discovery came late last year when the developer George Wimpey called in an archaeological team after the demolition of Babe Ruth's sports bar on The Highway, Wapping, as required under its planning consent.
In the northern half of the site were found miscellaneous artefacts dating from the second to fourth century.
These included the remnants of timber frame buildings, clay and plaster walls and floors and traces of wall paintings. Assorted items including pottery, coins and hairpins were found and removed from the site.
Towards the south, 5ft-high stone walls were found and the remains of an underfloor heating system covering 10 rooms, suggesting a building of considerable status and importance. This belief has been reinforced by other finds including a marble floor and a column.
Although the walls will be preserved, they will not be put on public display. Instead, they will be covered with shingle and sand and buried underneath a small block of flats, to ensure that they are available for future archaeologists to inspect in centuries to come.
Thursday, 23 January, 2003, 16:31 GMT
Historic 'life' in Belfast uncovered
Julie Savage
BBC News Online, Belfast
Archaeologists have been giving details of what is said to be the most important find of 17th Century artefacts ever made in Belfast.
An excavation of what was once a medieval village and plantation town has yielded more than 20,000 artefacts.
The foundations of homes and businesses dating back to the 1600s have been uncovered during the five month dig.
The site, situated between Hill Street and Waring Street, in the city centre was part of a redevelopment scheme by the pub company Life Inns.
When the importance of the find became known, construction was delayed by the company who then invested £90,000 in the examination of the site.
Items recovered include 17th century coins, imported pottery as well as pottery made in Belfast.
The archaeologist leading the dig, Ruairi O' Baoill, said the fragments found were without doubt the "most significant archaeological finds in Belfast to date".
"The artefacts which we have recovered from the site are something which both archaeologists and residents of Belfast can treasure forever," said Mr O'Baoill.
Another of the archaeologists on the site, Graham Heyburn, said the find was impressive because of the wide range of material gathered.
"My most memorable find was a key - this was an unusual find," he added.
The artefacts uncovered are displayed at the Environment and Heritage Services' office, yards from the dig and illustrate the variety of material found.
It includes fragments of pottery dating from the 16th and 17th Century as well as everyday implements such as a fan, a hair brush and coins.
Some of the pottery on show was believed to have been imported to Belfast from Germany and Holland.
John O' Keefe from the Department of Environment and Heritage Services said the discovery of local pottery was extremely important.
"What is very significant is the pottery found here illustrates the first pottery to be made in Belfast."
The Belfast pottery, known as the Potthouse, existed between 1697 and 1725.
The excavation has also given archaeologists an insight into the lives of people who pioneered attempts at industry.
It provides a link to Belfast's inhabitants from the plantation period to the 18th Century recession.
While the pottery industry flourished during its first years it soon was in decline and was later replaced by the linen and ship industries.
2,400-year-old ship found in Black Sea
International Herald Tribune
William J. Broad The New York Times
Friday, January 17, 2003
Scientists say they have discovered the remains of a 2,400-year-old ship at the bottom of the Black Sea - the oldest shipwreck ever found in the sea and a testament to its role as a vibrant crossroads of ancient commerce.
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The ship, laden with amphoras, ancient Greek jars, apparently sank in about the fourth century B.C., the golden age of the Greek city-states. One amphora held the bones of about a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) freshwater catfish that had been dried and cut into steaks, a popular food in ancient Greece.
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A team of American and Bulgarian scientists led by Robert Ballard, the ocean explorer best known for discovering the Titanic, found the wreck last summer. The vessel, he said, lies 275 feet down and several kilometers from the Bulgarian coast, barely in sight of land.
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Presumably, he said, the ship had been sailing from a Black Sea colony to the Greek mainland, heavy with trade goods.
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"The Greeks went into the Black Sea for fish and gold," he said, adding that their own sea, the Aegean, "is beautiful but sterile," lacking the nutrients to sustain a rich supply of seafood.
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Radiocarbon studies by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts dated the catfish bones to 488 to 228 B.C.
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Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania who analyzed the amphora's design, said it was typical of those made in Sinop, Turkey, a thriving Greek settlement in the fourth century B.C. Ancient writers reported that some of Greece's supply of the dried fish steaks, called tarichos, came from the Black Sea region near the Crimea.
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Hiebert said the ship might have started its journey in Sinop, on the sea's southern shore, then picked up the fish cargo on the northern shore at the Crimean Peninsula, where big catfish thrived in the rivers. The scientists speculate that the ship then headed west before sinking off present-day Bulgaria.
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The artifacts, Ballard said, are giving historians their "first look at an actual wreck from a key era of trade" known previously only through written records.
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He added that his team would go back to the site this summer to dig up the wreck and learn more of its secrets.
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The discovery was made public Wednesday by the National Geographic Society, which financed the expedition along with the Ocean Exploration Initiative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, where Ballard works.
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The discovery expedition took place last July and early August as part of a long program of Black Sea work by Ballard.
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Dwight Coleman, of the Institute for Exploration, served as the expedition's chief scientist, focusing on targets identified the previous season in a sonar survey. He said three Bulgarian team members in a submersible equipped with bright lights spotted the wreck on Aug. 1, the expedition's last day.
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Amphoras were used to hold wine, olive oil, honey, fish and other products. The explorers could see about two dozen of them in the gloom, and the recovery of one from the ooze revealed deeper layers - characteristic of how the jars were packed on ancient wooden ships. The recovered amphora was about a meter high, a standard size.
.
During this summer's program, the scientists hope to learn what else the amphoras held and what lies beneath them - whether the ship's wooden hull, tools, personal items or perhaps coins, which could help pinpoint the date of the sinking.
Scientists say they have discovered the remains of a 2,400-year-old ship at the bottom of the Black Sea - the oldest shipwreck ever found in the sea and a testament to its role as a vibrant crossroads of ancient commerce.
.
The ship, laden with amphoras, ancient Greek jars, apparently sank in about the fourth century B.C., the golden age of the Greek city-states. One amphora held the bones of about a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) freshwater catfish that had been dried and cut into steaks, a popular food in ancient Greece.
.
A team of American and Bulgarian scientists led by Robert Ballard, the ocean explorer best known for discovering the Titanic, found the wreck last summer. The vessel, he said, lies 275 feet down and several kilometers from the Bulgarian coast, barely in sight of land.
.
Presumably, he said, the ship had been sailing from a Black Sea colony to the Greek mainland, heavy with trade goods.
.
"The Greeks went into the Black Sea for fish and gold," he said, adding that their own sea, the Aegean, "is beautiful but sterile," lacking the nutrients to sustain a rich supply of seafood.
.
Radiocarbon studies by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts dated the catfish bones to 488 to 228 B.C.
.
Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania who analyzed the amphora's design, said it was typical of those made in Sinop, Turkey, a thriving Greek settlement in the fourth century B.C. Ancient writers reported that some of Greece's supply of the dried fish steaks, called tarichos, came from the Black Sea region near the Crimea.
.
Hiebert said the ship might have started its journey in Sinop, on the sea's southern shore, then picked up the fish cargo on the northern shore at the Crimean Peninsula, where big catfish thrived in the rivers. The scientists speculate that the ship then headed west before sinking off present-day Bulgaria.
.
The artifacts, Ballard said, are giving historians their "first look at an actual wreck from a key era of trade" known previously only through written records.
.
He added that his team would go back to the site this summer to dig up the wreck and learn more of its secrets.
.
The discovery was made public Wednesday by the National Geographic Society, which financed the expedition along with the Ocean Exploration Initiative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, where Ballard works.
.
The discovery expedition took place last July and early August as part of a long program of Black Sea work by Ballard.
.
Dwight Coleman, of the Institute for Exploration, served as the expedition's chief scientist, focusing on targets identified the previous season in a sonar survey. He said three Bulgarian team members in a submersible equipped with bright lights spotted the wreck on Aug. 1, the expedition's last day.
.
Amphoras were used to hold wine, olive oil, honey, fish and other products. The explorers could see about two dozen of them in the gloom, and the recovery of one from the ooze revealed deeper layers - characteristic of how the jars were packed on ancient wooden ships. The recovered amphora was about a meter high, a standard size.
.
During this summer's program, the scientists hope to learn what else the amphoras held and what lies beneath them - whether the ship's wooden hull, tools, personal items or perhaps coins, which could help pinpoint the date of the sinking.