Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2024 i ARCHAEOLOGY

It can be difficult to discern the presence of women in the archaeological record, but for researchers willing to dig deeper and make an effort to search for them, the results can prove especially exciting. In this issue, you will read about several different women without whom the story of the past would be incomplete. At times an artifact excavated long ago can provide archaeologists with a new opportunity to learn about women’s lives. For example, two Egyptologists recently reexamined a brightly painted limestone grave stela that has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art since the 1930s, when museum archaeologists unearthed it during excavations in the necropolis of Thebes. The pair concluded that the stela bears the names of no fewer than nine women—some of whom…

Many of the buildings along Pompeii’s streets are covered with painted messages extolling the virtues of candidates running for office nearly 2,000 years ago. “These graffiti played a similar role to our electoral posters, to get consensus and support candidates,” says classicist Maria Chiara Scappaticcio of the University of Naples Federico II. While these political slogans are commonly found on the exterior of buildings, maximizing their exposure to the voting public, new excavations in Pompeii’s Regio IX area have unearthed a property that had election propaganda in its interior. These dipinti appear on three walls of a room that also contains the residence’s lararium, or household altar, which is decorated with serpents. The political graffiti encouraged voters to elect a man named Aulus Rustius Verus for the office of aedile,…

Over the past 25 years, Stéphen Rostain of the French National Center for Scientific Research has led excavations of Sangay and Kilamope, two major settlements in southern Ecuador’s Upano Valley. He and his team have documented huge complexes consisting of rectangular earthen mounds situated around central plazas that were built by people of the agrarian Kilamope and Upano cultures. Now, the team’s lidar survey of a 115-square-mile area of this region of the Amazon has revealed that these sites were part of a larger network of early urban settlements that date back as far as 2,500 years. Using the lidar maps, Rostain and his colleagues identified three more major settlements as well as 10 secondary sites. Complexes at these sites, which cover an area of about 17,000 square feet each,…

ONE OCTOBER MORNING IN 336 B.C., the small theater at Aigai, the ceremonial center of ancient Macedonia, began to fill with honored guests. They had come from across Greece and the Balkans to attend the wedding celebrations of King Philip II’s daughter. A day of entertainment was to follow the wedding, and every seat was taken well before dawn. As the sun rose, a royal procession entered. With the atmosphere reaching fever pitch, Philip finally made his entrance. This was meant to be a triumphal moment, the pinnacle of his career. Philip was already the most successful Macedonian king ever. During his 24-year reign, he had invigorated the army, built up the kingdom’s infrastructure, and expanded Macedonian control across the northern Aegean. Now, he was poised to invade Persia. But…

By the early thirteenth century B.C., the rulers of the Hittite Empire (ca. 1650–1200 B.C.) controlled most of central Anatolia and had expanded their territory by conquering new lands in western Anatolia and Syria. King Muwatalli II (reigned ca. 1295–1272 B.C.) moved royal operations from the original Hittite capital of Hattusha to Tarhuntasha, a city in southern Anatolia he named after the storm god Tarhunta. Cuneiform records from Muwatalli’s reign suggest that his motivation for the shift was religious reform. “Tarhunta had little prominence before Muwatalli,” says archaeologist Michele Massa of Bilkent University. “But the king decided to make this god the new head of the Hittite pantheon.” Scholars, however, believe there were likely other geopolitical factors that influenced the establishment of a new capital dedicated to Tarhunta. At the…

From at least the sixth to eighth century A.D., the diverse peoples of Central Asia’s Pamir Mountains were under the rule of various kingdoms, including the Shughnān Kingdom. Although there is a present-day region in Tajikistan and Afghanistan called Shughnān, scholars only have a slim understanding of this ancient kingdom’s history, even though it lay at the crossroads of major ancient trade and pilgrimage routes connecting China and India. According to the Tang Shu, a Chinese history of the Tang Dynasty (a.d. 618–906), a town called Kuûhaûn was Shughnān’s capital. Seventh- and eighth-century A.D. Buddhist travelogues, as well as the Shahnameh, a Persian epic poem written around A.D. 1000, provide crucial, yet vague, details about the kingdom. “These texts state that Shughnān played an active and important role in the…

As described by the chroniclers of the sixteenth-century Spanish de Soto expedition, the woman known to history as the Lady of Cofitachequi made a dramatic entrance to an audience with Hernando de Soto and his officers somewhere in what is now South Carolina. On May 1, 1540, she was borne to the meeting on a litter decorated with brilliant white cloth. The chroniclers marveled that such a beautiful woman ruled one of the alliances of towns in the American Southeast now known as Mississippian chiefdoms. She evidently exercised canny diplomacy and headed off direct conflict by allowing the Spaniards to spend at least 10 days at Cofitachequi, a large town that lay along a river at the heart of her realm. The Spanish soldiers, some 600 strong, took over half…

IN SOUTHWESTERN OKLAHOMA, between the Washita and Canadian Rivers, the Wichita Reservation spreads across some 700,000 acres of grassland. The Wichita, known in their own language as the Kitikiti’sh, or Eminent Ones, are today made up of five bands that include some 3,000 enrolled members who can trace their lineage on the Great Plains back more than 1,000 years. In their earliest permanent settlements, the Wichita people built small mud-plastered homes, while later Wichita constructed large beehive-shaped grass lodges that could comfortably sleep up to 12 people. Framed by wooden poles and branches, the exteriors of these later houses were reinforced with intricately woven grass and reeds that rendered them watertight. Standing in the middle of many later villages were seemingly impenetrable fortifications composed of wooden palisades, circular ditches, and…

Archaeology is a difficult term to explain with ease or brevity,” writes Ann Axtell Morris in her 1933 book, Digging in the Southwest, in which she describes her fieldwork and her engagement with the landscape of the southwestern United States and its peoples. “It stretches wide as the earth, lies buried deep as the grave, and is long-lasting as the human race.” The feature film Canyon of the Dead, scheduled for release in 2024, tells the story of Morris, her husband Earl, and their work in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in the 1920s and 1930s. Directed and written by Coerte Voorhees and produced in close collaboration with the Navajo Nation, the movie explores early archaeological research in the American Southwest. Its sweeping panoramas encompass the homelands of the Pueblo, the…

The hard labor and often cruel conditions experienced by the indigent inmates of London’s workhouses are well-documented in nineteenth-century historical records and popular literature. However, recent explorations of the remnants of the St. Pancras workhouse in the borough of Camden suggest that the facility began with a more benign mission that focused on supporting the urban poor. Archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology have excavated the foundations and walls of the original workhouse, which was built in 1809 and demolished after heavy bombing during World War II. In an area of the workhouse thought to have been the women’s wards, researchers unearthed fireplaces and walls covered in blue painted plaster, indicating that residents likely lived in brighter and more comfortable quarters than previously known. Artifacts such as a bone toothbrush…

According to the first-century A.D. Roman writer Pliny the Elder, the ancient city of Lixus in what is now northern Morocco was the site of the Garden of the Hesperides, where the semidivine hero Hercules is said to have slain the dragon that guarded a tree bearing golden apples. The earliest traces of a settlement in Lixus date to the eighth century B.C., when seafaring Phoenicians from the Levant built one of their first western Mediterranean outposts atop a plateau overlooking the Loukkos River. “Two thousand years ago, Lixus would have been on a peninsula in a brackish lagoon, rather than situated further inland as it is today,” says archaeologist Stephen Collins-Elliott of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The city’s position on this navigable inlet, he explains, would have provided…

Archaeologists opened a window into the lives and appearances of the pages who attended the prestigious royal school of ancient Macedonia during excavations carried out decades ago. On the edge of the Greek village of Agios Athanasios, they discovered a large tomb dating to the last quarter of the fourth century B.C., whose facade is adorned with murals. A painted frieze depicting a drinking party runs along the facade’s upper section. In the image, six men recline on couches, their heads wreathed, a feast laid out before them. They enjoy wine from elaborate drinking vessels and music played by two female courtesans. On the right, several young men arrive at the party. They are attired in the distinctive dress of Macedonian soldiers—a cap called a kausia, a short cloak known…

The fourteenth-century Icelandic Edwardsaga chronicles the life of Edward the Confessor, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England (reigned 1042–1066). It also describes how, in the years after the Norman Conquest in 1066—when William the Conqueror invaded England and was crowned king—350 ships carrying English warriors set out for Constantinople. There, the Byzantine emperor employed the Anglo-Saxons as members of the Varangian Guard, an elite unit of foreign soldiers that served as his personal army. Such was their loyalty, says the Edwardsaga, that the emperor deeded them land six days’ sailing north of Constantinople. There, presumably on the northern shores of the Black Sea, they are said to have occupied towns and cities with names such as London and York. Medieval English towns on the Black Sea may sound like something…

NOT FAR FROM THE Andalusian coast in southwestern Iberia, an unusual group of women was laid to rest around 4,800 years ago. Their communal tomb, known as the Montelirio tholos, was built into the east side of a natural hill. A 125-foot-long subterranean corridor with sandstone, granite, and slate roofing extended inward from the entrance. Along this passageway were vertical slate slabs coated with the blood-red pigment cinnabar, or mercury sulfide. At the corridor’s end was a circular chamber 15 feet in diameter, with a vaulted earthen ceiling rising at least 13 feet high, most likely supported during construction by wooden posts. Its sides, too, were lined with cinnabar-coated slate slabs, which served as a canvas for black, white, and red geometric motifs. One of these, a circle with short…

EDUCATE A vital part of the AIA’s mission is to educate and inform the public about archaeology and the importance of cultural heritage. To that end, each year at the AIA’s Annual Meeting, the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award is presented to someone whose innovative teaching empowers their students and inspires them to dig deeper into archaeology. This year’s winner was Sinclair Bell, Presidential Teaching Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University. Bell is described by his colleagues as a true educator, and his ability to capture the interest of students who otherwise might have no experience in art history or archaeology is unmatched. In the words of one of his students: “Dr. Bell is a spectacular professor who creates an environment that inspires his students to do their…

Archaeologists in the Heddernheim section of the German city of Frankfurt have excavated and conserved an intact wooden cellar—including its five-step staircase—dating to the late first century A.D. At the time, this neighborhood was an administrative center of the Roman province of Germania Superior called Nida. The cellar was part of a residential building on one of Nida’s two main streets and was likely used to store, among other items, amphoras filled with oil, olives, wine, and fish sauce. Toward the end of the first century, the building burned down, carbonizing and preserving the cellar. “In earlier investigations, there were indications of an extensive fire in the city center,” says archaeologist Carsten Wenzel of the Archaeological Museum of Frankfurt. “This was previously interpreted as a consequence of unrest.” The cellar…

The partial skeleton of a female gyrfalcon has been discovered near the top of a well in the citadel of Karabalgasun, the capital of the Uighur Empire (a.d. 745–840), in central Mongolia’s Orkhon Valley. Karabalgasun was destroyed and abandoned in A.D. 840, but the gyrfalcon’s remains have been radiocarbon dated to the eleventh or twelfth century, most likely during the reign of the nomadic Khitan or Liao Dynasty (a.d. 907–1125). Gyrfalcons, the largest species in the falcon family, appear naturally in Mongolia only on very rare occasions, but the fierce birds of prey were highly prized by Khitan leaders. According to ancient historical documents, they demanded white gyrfalcons as tribute from subjugated peoples living in the far north of their territory and used them to hunt swans as part of…

Villagers living in northeastern China around 4,000 years ago appear to have been the target of a catastrophic headhunting raid. At a site known as Honghe, archaeologists from the Heilongjiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology have excavated a total of 68 skeletons, including 41 without heads, which were found in two houses and three tombs. All the decapitated skeletons belonged to either females or juveniles. Qian Wang, an anthropologist at Texas A&M’s School of Dentistry who led a team that analyzed the human remains, believes the 32 headless victims discovered in the two houses were killed in a single vicious attack. Headless skeletons have been found at other sites in the area dating to the same period—though never in numbers as large as at Honghe—suggesting that decapitation was…

WYOMING: The oldest known bead in the Western Hemisphere was found at the La Prele Mammoth site near the North Platte River. The quarter-inch-long tube-shaped object was uncovered near the hearth of a temporary Paleoindian camp set up by hunters around 13,000 years ago to butcher a mammoth. The decorative item was fashioned from either the leg or foot bone of a hare and may have been worn as a personal adornment. PANAMA: Archaeologists unearthed a 1,250-year-old tomb brimming with luxurious gold objects at El Caño Archaeological Park. The grave belonged to a high-status man who was buried face down on top of a woman. This burial style was common among the area’s Indigenous Gran Coclé culture. Among the funerary offerings are 5 pectorals, 2 beaded belts, 4 bracelets, 5…

CAPITAL OF THE WORLD’S FIRST EMPIRE Iraq The Akkadian Empire (ca. 2340–2198 B.C.) represented something entirely new in human history: a dynasty that conquered and ruled over a vast territory, incorporating people of different ethnicities who were forced to adopt its ways. At its height, the empire encompassed much of modern Iraq and parts of Syria, though its heartland is believed to have been the fertile plains of central Mesopotamia watered by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Among other innovations, the empire’s founder, Sargon (reigned ca. 2340–2285 B.C.), instituted Ishtar, the Semitic goddess of war, as the patron deity of the dynasty, rather than of just a single city. A landmark of the Akkadian capital, Agade, was the Eulmash temple, dedicated to Ishtar. The Akkadians also pioneered new forms of…

There are at least 17 places off the southern coast of Britain that modern scholars have suggested might be the island of Iktis, a major center of the Iron Age (ca. 750 B.C.–a.d.43) tin trade. The confusion, however, didn’t begin in modern times, but rather with the multiple ancient authors who mention the island. The only one to call the island Iktis—without saying exactly where it could be found—is the first-century B.C. Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus, who likely drew on other ancient Greek sources, reports that the Greek explorer Pytheas sailed to the British Isles in the fourth century B.C., landed in what is now Cornwall, saw the island, and wrote about it in his now-lost book On the Ocean. In his Library of History, Diodorus writes: To an…

When Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late fourteenth century, he set one of his stories in “Sarai, in the land of the Tartars.” At that time, Sarai was widely known as the capital of the mighty Golden Horde. An independent state within the Mongol Empire, the Golden Horde was initially led by the Islamic Jochid Dynasty, descendants of Genghis Khan’s oldest son, Jochi. From the 1240s until 1502, the Jochids and their successors held sway over the western Eurasian steppe, as well as much of Russia and Central Asia. Jochi’s son Batu is said to have founded Sarai as a seasonal residence near the banks of the Lower Volga River sometime in the 1250s. Lying at the nexus of vital long-distance trade routes, Sarai eventually grew from the…

AFTER MONTHS SPENT EXCAVATING a remarkably rich grave dating to about 1450 B.C. near the palace of Nestor, the Mycenaean king of ancient Pylos, archaeologists Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis of the University of Cincinnati thought they had found everything there was to find. They had uncovered a collection of some of the most exceptional Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1200 B.C.) artifacts to have survived, including an ivory plaque decorated with a griffin that had inspired their name for the deceased: the Griffin Warrior. They had also unearthed numerous carved seal stones, notably one they called the Pylos Combat Agate, countless pieces of gold jewelry, and the man’s bronze armor and weapons. All that remained visible in the grave were several small, thin pieces of bronze. “We had tried to…

A strip of forest with thick stands of trees including tall oaks and hickory separates the 8,300-acre Ashokan Reservoir and New York State Route 28, the main highway into the Catskill Mountains. Constructed in the early twentieth century, the reservoir provides 40 percent of New York City’s water. The forest surrounding the reservoir is maintained by New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), whose mission includes safeguarding the quality of the reservoir’s water—often called the champagne of American urban water. Most of these lands are open to hunters and fishers with permits or anyone who might take an interest in hiking through what seems at first glance to be pristine forest. Archaeologist April Beisaw of Vassar College has spent years walking in these woods and concedes that they offer…