Innholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2018 i ARCHAEOLOGY

In “Westminster Abbey’s Hidden History” (page 32), contributing editor Jason Urbanus reports that artifacts spanning more than seven centuries have been discovered some 70 feet above the Abbey’s main aisle in the triforium level. The arcaded gallery, made up of the arches and recesses formed by the Abbey’s vaulted ceiling, apparently was the place to leave—and forget—items of all sorts from the storied past of a building that is synonymous with Britain. “The City at the Beginning of the World” (page 26), by Lizzie Wade, covers the work of archaeologists at the site of Nixtun-Chi’ch’ in northern Guatemala, where updated GPS mapping techniques are revealing the city’s long-hidden urban grid, the only one known in the Maya world. Dating to before 500 B.C., Nixtun-Chi’ch’, the layout of which appears to…

Five lead mirror frames dating to the turn of the third century A.D. have been found in a square building at a Roman villa outside the town of Pavlikeni in northern Bulgaria. Three of the frames are decorated with the image of a large wine vessel and bear an inscription that means a “good soul.” The villa belonged to a Roman military veteran and was built around the turn of the second century A.D. The building where the frames were found was thought to have housed villa workers. But, says excavation leader Karin Chakarov of the Pavlikeni Museum of History, the presence of the mirror frames suggests it may instead have been a temple.…

The Sumerians are known for having established one of the world’s earliest agricultural civilizations, but a chance discovery in southern Iraq suggests they also traveled the seas and conducted long-range trade. In 2016, researchers from the Sapienza University of Rome were excavating at the site of Abu Tbeirah when they spied clay bricks in a foxhole. In the years since, they have found remains of brick ramparts along with docks and an artificial basin that served as the town’s port. Dating back more than 4,000 years, it is the oldest harbor ever to have been discovered in Iraq. The researchers have also found carnelian beads from India along with alabaster vases and other objects that must have been procured overseas. The finds are surprising because the extensive records Sumerians left…

Founded in 1879, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is well known for the study of ancient sites in the Mediterranean. Less well known is the Institute’s role in investigating and protecting archaeological sites in the United States and how these efforts have promoted the preservation of cultural heritage around the world. Not long after the AIA was established, its leaders invited anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), to help plan its activities in North America. Morgan encouraged the AIA to begin a systematic investigation of Native American monumental architecture in the United States. The AIA’s archaeological surveys in the American Southwest revealed extensive plunder of ancient pueblos and cliff dwellings. In response, the AIA joined the Smithsonian Institution, the American…

The remains of an early and tenacious English outpost in North America can be found on the Pemaquid Peninsula of Maine’s southcentral coast. Colonial Pemaquid began as a seasonal fishing community on the islands of Monhegan and Damariscove in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Settlers representing wealthy Bristol merchants built a village on the site by the late 1620s and began trading with French colonists to the north and members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, whose ancestors had lived in the area for millennia. Wabanaki war parties destroyed Pemaquid’s main village in 1676 and again in 1698, along with two forts built successively to protect the settlement. The village ruins lie at the center of a site where archaeologists have been working since the 1960s. Finds uncovered, including a…

To celebrate the 270th anniversary of Pompeii’s discovery, authorities have revealed the latest finds unearthed in the famous ancient Roman city. The current excavations, which are part of the largest exploration of new material since World War II, took place in a 1,200-square-yard strip along the northern border of the site, where the unexcavated and excavated parts of the city abut. Although there is a moratorium on any digging in roughly one-third of the site that remains buried from the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the current project is part of essential conservation work aimed at stabilizing high earthen sections of the unexcavated city that are susceptible to collapse. Archaeologists first had to remove soil that had accumu-lated during nearby excavations in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To…

In a town just north of Tokyo, a ceramic jar filled with thousands of bronze coins has been unearthed at the site of a fifteenth-century samurai’s residence. According to archaeologist Yoshiyuki Takise of the Saitama Cultural Deposits Research Corporation, the coins, which were cast in China, may have been an offering to the deity of the earth, or may simply have been buried for safekeeping. Markings on a wooden tablet found on the rim of the jar indicate it could contain as many as 260,000 coins, a number that Takise says far exceeds what one would expect to find in circulation in what was then a rural area.…

The cataclysmic eruption 74,000 years ago of Sumatra’s Mount Toba caused a volcanic winter and may have nearly annihilated the earth’s human population. The search for evidence of that eruption has contributed potentially ground-breaking advances to archaeological dating. Working at two sites on the coast of South Africa, researchers have discovered a layer containing glass shards from the blast that fell over a two-week period and are invisible to the naked eye. The precise time frame provided by the shards can serve as a control to test methods for dating rock shelters and other sites occupied millennia ago. “We’ve now sampled several other cave sites in South Africa looking for evidence of the Toba eruption,” explains archaeologist and paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean. “If we can find it, we can align those…

One of the largest urban excavations ever conducted in Oxford, England, has revealed artifacts relating to the lives of medieval students and clergy at the city’s famous university. Hundreds of items recovered from the site of Greyfriars, a Franciscan friary connected with Oxford, founded in 1224 and closed in 1538 during King Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, include writing styluses, book clasps, leather sandals, and glass vials possibly used for experiments, as well as animal bones, cutlery, beer mugs, and jugs for storing wine. According to Ben Ford of Oxford Archaeology, ample evidence of eating and drinking suggests pleasures of the table held considerable importance for the community. “We are looking in particular at the food remains,” he says. “Did they adhere to their vow of poverty, and did…

WESTMINSTER ABBEY IS one of the most famous buildings in Christendom. It has stood witness to signal events, serving as the site of English coronations for almost one thousand years, hosting dozens of royal weddings and funerals, and containing the tombs of monarchs, poets, scientists, and countless other notable Britons. Recently, it was the site of an unusual archaeological dig. The excavations did not take place outside on the Abbey’s grounds, as might be expected, but instead in the triforium—an arcaded gallery some 70 feet above the nave, or central aisle. The 20th-century poet John Betjeman described the triforium as offering the “best view” in Europe. Today, many people have, without realizing it, experienced that vantage point on television. The cameras that broadcast important Abbey ceremonies are often stationed in…

BEFORE THE ROMANS CAME to dominate the Italian Peninsula, another powerful civilization once held sway in central Italy—the Etruscans. Though a fair amount is known about their wealthy, cosmopolitan culture, nearly all that knowledge comes from the hundreds of tombs that have been found in the land of Etruria, between the Tiber and Arno Rivers, west and south of the Apennine Mountains. These burial chambers, which are often brightly painted and filled with costly grave goods, have provided most of the evidence scholars have used to reconstruct Etruscan customs, cultural connections, and technological achievements. But to this day, their language, despite being written in an alphabet probably related to one of the early Greek alphabets, remains undeciphered, and relatively few Etruscan domestic properties have been identified. Thus many questions about…

CELEBRATE INTERNATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY DAY, OCTOBER 20, 2018 International ARCHAEOLOGY Day (IAD), the annual celebration of ARCHAEOLOGY begun by the AIA, continues to expand globally. In 2017, more than 500 Collaborating Organizations in two dozen countries organized over 900 events. Follow-up reports indicate that at least 200,000 people attended IAD events around the world. In comparison, the first ARCHAEOLOGY Day in 2011 featured 115 events, 14 Collaborating Organizations, and an attendance of just over 15,000 people. Although IAD is officially celebrated on the third Saturday in October, Collaborating Organizations hold events throughout the month highlighting the important work they do. IAD events vary greatly by organization and location. For example, in 2017, the International Archaeological Center of the University of Georgia and Quality Schools International Tbilisi hosted a seminar led by…

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Researchers from Denmark’s Sea War Museum Jutland used multi-beam echo sounding to locate the wreck of infamous Nazi submarine U-3523 in 400 feet of water, 10 miles north of Skagen in the Skagerrak strait. The technologically advanced U-boat had the potential to revolutionize naval warfare because it could sail for prolonged distances without needing to resurface, but it was sunk by a British aircraft on May 6, 1945. “It was a surprise to find the submarine there, since we believed it was at least 10 miles to the east,” says Gert Normann Andersen, museum director. “But on the scan we recognized the silhouette and were sure it was U-3523.” After WWII’s conclusion, rumors circulated that the submarine may have been fleeing while carrying high-ranking Nazi officials and a cargo of…

When USS Indianapolis was found last year (“Top 10 Discoveries,” January/February 2018), it laid to rest some of the questions that had always surrounded the location of her sinking. However, the exact number of people aboard Indianapolis when she went down continued to be debated. This uncertainty, too, has now been resolved, with the final correct number established at 1,195, not, as was previously believed, 1,196. While researching the discrepancy, naval historian Richard Hulver found a letter from Radio Technician 2nd Class Clarence W. Donnor’s mother, Ruth, in reply to a telegram informing her that her son had perished. She wrote that she had, in fact, spoken to Clarence since July 30, 1945, the day Indianapolis sank to the bottom of the North Pacific. The letter clarified that although RT2c…