VOTIVE GOLD HOARD FOUND IN PAGAN TEMPLE

IN A PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OSLO’S MUSEUM OF CULTURAL HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE DISCOVERED A VOTIVE GOLD HOARD DURING ROAD DEVELOPMENT WORKS SOUTH OF LILLEHAMMER ON THE SHORES OF LAKE MJØSA, NORWAY.

Excavations have found five tiny pieces of rectangular sheet gold decorated with motifs and stamped imagery depicting a man and a woman. The objects were discovered in the remains of a pagan temple, where previous excavations have uncovered thirty similar stamped gold objects in the vicinity over the past three decades.

The building measures around fifteen metres in length and was likely used for ritual drinking, however, it is unlikely that any feasting took place due to the lack of domestic archaeological evidence.

The latest objects were found beneath the structure in the wall runs and in adjacent postholes, suggesting that they were ritually placed as votive offerings in the form of a sacrifice or a religious act to protect the building before it was constructed.

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1400-year-old gold foil figures found in pagan temple

Archaeologists have discovered a votive gold hoard during road development works in Vingrom, south of Lillehammer on the shores of Lake Mjøsa Norway.

The 5 gold pieces are tiny, about the size of a fingernail. They are flat and thin as paper, often square, and stamped with a motif. Usually, they depict a man and a woman in various types of clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles.

The objects were discovered in the remains of a pagan temple, where previous excavations have uncovered thirty similar stamped gold objects in the vicinity over the past three decades.

Archaeologist Kathrine Stene was the project leader for the excavation, which has been ongoing along the road here all summer and into autumn, due to the upgrade of the E6 highway between Mjøsa Bridge and Lillehammer.

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Untouched 1,300-Year-Old Grave Of Merovingian Warrior With Complete Armor Found In Ingelheim, Germany

The grave of a Merovingian warrior richly equipped with swords, knives, spears, and a shield.
Credit: Kaiserpfalz Ingelheim

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - An intriguing 1,300-year-old grave belonging to a Merovingian warrior has been discovered during an archaeological survey of an early Medieval cemetery in Ingelheim, Germany.

It is an exceptional and surprising find because the grave remains intact despite being between two looted graves. Somehow, looters must have missed this one. When archaeologists opened the grave, they found the remains of a Frankish warrior from the 7th century with complete armor.

Excavations at the site have been carried out by the Kaiserpfalz research team since 2015; this year is the last season. Numerous graves were already plundered in the Middle Ages, so finding an untouched burial as old as this one was naturally a wonderful surprise to all involved in the project.

According to a press statement issued by Kaiserpfalz Ingelheim, Merovingian graves on Rotweinstraße can usually be easily recognized by the darker filling of the burial pit. In this case, no color change was evident, and the entire area was heavily disturbed by adjacent graves and difficult to interpret.

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The warrior's grave was found at an early medieval cemetery in the German town of Ingelheim, which was later the site of one of Charlemagne's palaces.
(Image credit: Kaiserpfalz Research Center, Ingelheim)

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the grave of a Frankish warrior who was buried with his weapons and shield more than 1,300 years ago.

The weapons include a spatha, a long sword based on cavalry swords of the late Roman Empire.

The deceased appears to be a man who died between the ages of 30 and 40, probably in the seventh century, the archaeologists found.

The warrior was also buried with a short sword for slashing, called a seax, with an iron blade and a bronze handle; a heavy iron knife; and a spear, of which only the iron point survived. The remains of a shield made mainly of wood were also found; only the metal "boss" at the center survived.

The team found the grave in June during a dig at an early medieval cemetery that archaeologists have been excavating since March. The site is in the town of Ingelheim, which lies beside the Rhine River and about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Frankfurt.

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Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers

The 2013 Michaelmas Term of the University of Oxford online course “Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers” will begin on Wednesday, 27 September.

You can find further details of this course here…

What Viking Funerary Flatbread Teaches Archeologists About Ancient Baking

When most people think of the Vikings, they probably envision what the Vikings did way before picturing what they ate. But if food is fuel, then it's safe to say that the nomadic and infamously chaotic lifestyle of the Vikings needed lots of it. Most of what culinary archaeologists know about the Viking diet has been compiled from a combination of dig sites, the foods eaten by heroes in Norse sagas, and even a limited selection of ancient cookbooks. The Vikings as a people left behind precious few records and accounts. But one momentous archeological dig site uncovered a historical gem: Viking Funerary flatbread.

The loaves were uncovered in graves at Birka — a large, formerly hopping Viking trading post near Stockholm — earning this flatbread the name "Birka bread". Miraculously, the loaves were charred and therefore remained preserved through time. Whether the loaves were intentionally charred as a culinary choice or if they were burned in funeral pyres remains unclear.

The flatbread loaves found at Birka were made from a simple combination of salt, eggs, and flour, specifically barley and wheat. Other types of Viking bread used oats or spelt flour. For closest replication, curious home cooks should make their Birka bread over a campfire. But today's foodies don't value the loaves just for their recipe; the bread tells a much larger story than the sum of its parts.

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The Norse and the Sea: the Maritime Cultural Landscape of Scandinavian Scotland

The Norse and the Sea: the Maritime Cultural Landscape of Scandinavian Scotland

Paper by Alex Sanmark and Shane McLeod

Given at the Archaeological Research in Progress Conference 2023 of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on May 27, 2023

Abstract: This paper presents early results of the ongoing research project The Norse and the Sea with particular emphasis on the fieldwork carried out on the Isle of Eigg in September 2022. The project investigates the maritime cultural landscape in Scandinavian Scotland (c. AD 790-1350), through an interdisciplinary approach using archaeological, written and toponymic evidence and address the overarching questions of connectivity and communication in Norse Scotland.

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Vikings Were in America Before Columbus, Study Claims

Vikings from Greenland were living in North America before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, according to a recent study.. Credit: Helgi Halldórsson, CC BY-SA 2.0/Wikipedia

Vikings from Greenland were living in North America’s Newfoundland 1,000 years ago according to evidence from a recent study.

Newfoundland is located in Maritime Canada. Scientists have suspected for years that Vikings had settled in the area, but had not been able to assign a precise date to this encampment until now.

The authors of the research were able to trace the Vikings to trees they had cut down in order to build their shelter in Newfoundland. The trees indicate that the settlers were in the area as early as 1021 — 470 years before Christopher Columbus had arrived on the continent, and exactly one millennium ago.

“This is the first time the date has been scientifically established,” said archaeologist Margot Kuitems, a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who also led the study.

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Reconstructed Roman Gateway Tells The Story Of Britain’s Invasion

Richborough Roman Fort with the newly reconstructed gateway. Courtesy of English Heritage

The soil from these ditches would have been mounded up to create an earth rampart. These would have been a formidable defensive obstacle and typical of Roman military engineering of the first century AD.

Roman military defences normally enclosed a rectangular area for a camp or fort. The Richborough defences are odd in that they do not do that, but instead cut off a long stretch of land along the shore on the eastern side of the site.

Their full length to the north and south is unknown and much land to their east has undoubtedly been lost to erosion and the construction of the railway.

What was the purpose of the gateway and defences?

The defences look to be designed to secure a length of shoreline, leading historians to suggest that they were temporary defences for a beachhead.

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Teeth Can Preserve The Signal of Pathogens For Hundreds of Years, Study Finds

(Henry Horenstein/The Image Bank/Getty Images)

An analysis of antibodies extracted from 800-year-old teeth has provided a new way to identify pathogens our ancestors contended with.

The process could potentially help us understand how human antibodies – proteins naturally produced by our bodies in self-defense – have developed through history.

Building on previous research, a team led by researchers from the University of Nottingham and University College London (UCL) in the UK conducted a process called affinity purification to identify molecules through the way they bind to other molecules.

These kinds of bindings are a crucial part of how the human immune system works, and they can help researchers retroactively identify antibodies and what they were designed to fight against.

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International Medieval Congress 2024

The Viking Society is proposing to organise sessions at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds in 2024. The dates of the Conference are 1-4 July. N.B. Participation is not limited to Viking Society members.

You can find further details here...

Strange burial of 9th-century teenager reveals tragic story

English archaeologists have announced the discovery of the remains of a teenage girl buried in the Early Middle Ages. The circumstances of her burial were very unusual, suggesting she may have led a tragic life.

In ninth-century Cambridgeshire, as a community prepared to abandon their settlement, they took down the elaborate entrance gate and replaced it with a grave. In it were the remains of a young woman, aged just 15, buried face down in a pit and perhaps with her ankles bound together. This unusual grave gives us insight into a rare Early Medieval burial practice, and perhaps even contemporary attitudes towards those within the community who were considered different.

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More secrets of mystery Norman castle uncovered

Students from Manchester and Cardiff have been taking part in the Snodhill Castle dig

Marks left by stone masons and the remains of a hidden gate were found at Snodhill Castle in Herefordshire.

Tim Hoverd, the council's archaeology projects manager said the finds gave an idea of the cost and strength of the Norman castle.

The dig was at the site of chapel inside the castle and the finds suggested a substantial building, more on a par with a small church, he said.

Mr Hoverd said: "We should be able to trace who these masons were and when they were working in the county or nearby."

The trust which runs the castle has previously said it5 believes it has found the site of a Royal Free Chapel, a church belonging directly to a monarch.

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The Byzantine General Who Challenged the Emperor

Byzantine general George Maniakes who chalenged emperor Michael IV, leads a cavalry charge against the Arabs. Credit: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

After the tremendously successful reign of Basil II, the eleventh century signaled a turn of fortunes in a far more negative direction for the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, marked by military defeats and decline.

However, George Maniakes, a Byzantine general, stood as an exception in this rather depressing era for the Byzantine Empire. Maniakes stood quite literally as a giant on the battlefield owing to his imposing stature, but he was also a supremely capable tactician and commander.

The historian John Julius Norwich described Maniakes as “the glorious, tempestuous, ill-starred” preeminent Byzantine general of his age.

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Zahnanalyse ermöglicht neue Erkenntnisse zur Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Südwestdeutschland von der Steinzeit bis zur Eisenzeit

Bestattungen des Endneolithikums und der Frühbronzezeit, wie dieses vor wenigen Jahren in Heilbronn entdeckte Hockergrab der Schnurkeramik, standen im Fokus der Biodistanzanalysen.
Bild: © Landesamt für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart

Das Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Senckenberg und die Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen haben eine neue Methode zur menschlichen Zahnanalyse getestet, um umfassendere Einblicke in die Populationsgeschichte Südwestdeutschlands von der ausgehenden Steinzeit bis zur frühen Eisenzeit zu gewinnen. Die Studie konzentriert sich auf die Untersuchung von Zähnen in menschlichen Bestattungen.

Mit der neuen Analysemethode namens FLEXDIST können genetisch bedingte Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen Individuen anhand spezifischer Zahnmerkmale ermittelt werden. Diese Merkmale, wie beispielsweise die Anzahl und Größe der Höcker von Backenzähnen, sind vererbbar und liefern Aufschluss über die Biodistanz, also die Ähnlichkeit zwischen Individuen. Die Analyse der Zähne kann somit mit genetischen Untersuchungen verglichen werden.

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Neue Erkenntnisse zur Populationsgeschichte des dritten bis ersten Jahrtausends v. Chr. in Südwestdeutschland

Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Senckenberg und Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen testen neue Methode zur menschlichen Zahnanalyse

11.07.23 Pressemitteilungen

Pressemitteilung Landesamt für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart

Einem Team von Forscherinnen und Forschern vom Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment (SHEP), der Arbeitsgruppe Paläoanthropologie an der Universität Tübingen und des Landesamts für Denkmalpflege (LAD) im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart ist es mit Hilfe einer neuen Analysemethode erstmals gelungen, umfassendere Einblicke in die menschliche Populationsgeschichte Südwestdeutschlands von der ausgehenden Steinzeit bis zur frühen Eisenzeit zu gewinnen. Die Studie gründet auf der Untersuchung von Zähnen menschlicher Bestattungen.

Mit der neuen Analysemethode FLEXDIST können genetisch bedingte Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede der Individuen anhand spezifischer Zahnmerkmale ermittelt werden. „Möglich wird dies, da jeder Zahn unterschiedliche morphologische Merkmale wie etwa die Anzahl und Größe der Höcker von Backenzähnen aufweist“, erläuterte Stephanie Lismann (Universität Tübingen), Zweitautorin der Studie. „Sie sind vererbbar und können Aufschlüsse zur Biodistanz liefern, also wie ähnlich Individuen zueinander sind. Die Analyse dieser Zähne ist mit genetischen Untersuchungen vergleichbar“, so Lismann.

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Earliest glass workshop north of the Alps discovered

Credit: Antiquity (2023). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.80

After 20 years of above-ground surveys, archaeologists have excavated the famous Iron Age site of Němčice and confirmed the presence of the earliest glass workshop north of the Alps.

Němčice is one of the most important settlement sites of the La Tène Period (3rd–2nd century BC) in Central Europe, famous for its unprecedented amount of gold and silver coins which number over 2,000.

Numerous beautiful glass bracelets and beads have also been found at the site. As such, it was thought that Němčice was a center of glass production, but only these excavations have confirmed this fact.

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Boris Johnson's swimming pool plans on hold as councillors demand archaeological dig

Boris Johnson running near his home in Brightwell-cum-Stowell

 (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Parish councillors are calling for archaeologists to excavate land around Boris Johnson's Oxfordshire mansion – as its five-acre grounds are believed to have been the site of a 12th-century siege castle

His political career collapsed spectacularly when so many of his blunders were unearthed.

So Boris Johnson could be forgiven for not wanting the past to be dug up yet again.

But parish councillors are calling for archaeologists to excavate land around his Oxfordshire village mansion – as its five-acre grounds are believed to have been the site of a 12th-century siege castle.

They acted after studying his plans for a 36ft swimming pool at the £3.8million pile.

An official objection was raised at a meeting last week.

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