Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2024 i ARCHAEOLOGY

Crocodiles loomed large in the world of the ancient Egyptians. The Nile teemed with the lurking reptiles, and farmers, who made up most of the population, encountered them on a daily basis. While Egyptians were rightly wary of the ferocious predators, they saw a healthy crocodile population as an auspicious sign that the annual flooding of the Nile would be successful, producing fertile soil from which they could raise bounteous crops. They considered crocodiles avatars of the god Sobek, who was known as Lord of the Nile. In cult centers across Egypt, specially selected crocodiles were treated as incarnations of the god. At the aptly named Crocodilopolis in the Fayum Oasis southwest of Cairo, writes the first-century B.C. Greek geographer Strabo, priests fed one such crocodile, named Suchus, a rich…

In his On the Embassy to Gaius, the first-century A.D. historian Philo of Alexandria recounts a diplomatic mission he led from Egypt to Rome seeking intervention on behalf of Alexandria’s Jews. During the summer of A.D. 38, violent mobs of Greek residents had desecrated and plundered Jewish synagogues, shops, and homes. Philo describes a meeting of the Jewish envoys and the opposing Greek delegation with the emperor Caligula (reigned A.D. 37–41) that took place in a garden of the Horti Agrippinae, a luxurious estate on the right bank of the Tiber that belonged to Caligula’s mother, Agrippina the Elder. (See “The Fiddler’s Theater” in “Top 10 Discoveries of 2023,” January/February 2024.) Terracotta sculptures and lead pipes excavated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the only traces of…

FOR MUCH OF CHINA’S millennia-long history, the western region of Sichuan was geographically isolated, encircled by mountains and with only limited connections to the outside world via the Yangtze River and its tributaries. The Bronze Age people of Sichuan were long thought to have been peripheral to the rise of that era’s two great powers, the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 B.C.) and the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 B.C.). These two states held sway over China’s Central Plains to the east of Sichuan along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. “Sichuan was left out of the grand narrative of the origins of Chinese history,” says archaeologist Rowan Flad of Harvard University. The fourth-century A.D. Chronicles of Huayang, the oldest surviving Chinese geographical survey, records that Sichuan was once the…

The beliefs of women and children who lived in the classical world can be difficult to access. Much of the work women traditionally did left relatively little evidence behind—loom weights and cooking pots being some of the exceptions—and written sources are far more likely to record the activities of men. Unlike children today, ancient children probably had few possessions, vanishingly few of which survive, considering children’s tendency—regardless of the era—to break things. But by examining 265 small figurines with jointed limbs and a suspension hole on the head, most of which were made in the Greek city of Corinth, archaeologist Susan Langdon of the University of Missouri has been able to take a rare look at how Corinthian girls became women and especially how they expressed themselves in relation to…

When people learn I’m an underwater archaeologist, many assume I lead a swashbuckling life of adventure, diving to the depths in search of golden treasure and the lost secrets of humankind. Images of archaeologists as action heroes navigating treacherous environments and combatting fearsome enemies draw on the popular fascination with archaeology. We see these tropes in video games, where archaeologists can be playable characters like Lara Croft and Indiana Jones. In these worlds, their human or Lego forms sometimes leave trails of destruction behind them. In Minecraft, players kill monsters and avoid trip wires in order to extract historical artifacts from ocean ruins, desert pyramids, and suspicious sands. They can then use or sell the artifacts to procure additional resources. Guided tours in Assassin’s Creed Origins, however, offer spectacular walks…

THE SUN ILLUMINATED the stadium in Ephesus, a wealthy harbor city in western Anatolia, on a day of eagerly anticipated gladiatorial combat. Festive decorations adorned the arena, and the air was filled with the scent of refreshing perfumed water sprayed over the crowd. As the gladiators were announced, they paraded before the spectators to the strains of music, displaying their powerful physiques and their readiness to fight. All eyes were drawn to two combatants in particular: Margarites, known as the “Pearl of the Arena,” and Palumbos, whose stage name was the “Male Dove.” By the time the sun was high overhead, the arena was packed to capacity. A horn signaled the start of the afternoon’s games. A pair of mounted gladiators featured in the initial spectacle, but the highlight was…

REUSING OBJECTS IS A fundamental way people connect with and honor their past. Maya kings, like many who serve Thanksgiving dinner on their grandmother’s best china or pin her favorite brooch to their dress for a special occasion, employed heirlooms as a means of memorializing and hearkening back to those who came before. “Reusing an object or a material wasn’t just a practical way to maximize their utility for the Maya,” says archaeologist Juan Carlos Melendez of the research unit Archaeology of the Americas in France. “There was purpose and intention behind it.” Likely around A.D. 635, Maya artists in the city of Calakmul, capital of the Kaanul, or Snake, Dynasty (ca. A.D. 200–736) gathered greenstone, or jade, ornaments, including earspools that been worn by earlier Kaanul rulers. Such earspools…

COVER—Prisma by Dukas Presseagentur GmbH/Alamy; 7—© Tolga İldun; 9—(clockwise, from top left) Italian Ministry of Culture; Ivgeni Ostrovski/Courtesy the Israel Antiquities Authority; Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo; Courtesy Jacqueline Meier; Courtesy Charlotte Williams; Kevin Cahail; 15—Courtesy the University of Manchester (2); 16—Courtesy the University of Manchester; Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo; 17—Photograph: Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech (2); Olaf Kunz/AdobeStock; Alex Pollard/Alamy; 18—Italian Ministry of Culture (2); Nick Brundle/AdobeStock; Kevin Cahail;19—Tauav/AdobeStock; Courtesy Jacqueline Meier; 20—National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Walter W. Taylor Field Photographs Box 105; Courtesy Charlotte Williams; 21—AdobeStock; Ivgeni Ostrovski/Courtesy the Israel Antiquities Authority; 22—Geir Magnussen 2021; Regin Meyer 2021/University Museum of Bergen; 24—(clockwise, from top left) Italian Ministry of Culture; Warmińska Grupa Eksploracyjna (via Facebook); Wikicommons; Courtesy INAH; Public Archeology Lab for the National Park Service;…

BODY HEAT In Jarrett A. Lobell’s Artifact about eyed needles (September/October 2024), archaeologists posit that as temperatures became colder and people had to cover themselves more than they had before, they stopped decorating their bodies and began to decorate their clothes. Would this help explain the current increasing occurrence of body tattoos—as our climate warms up, people wear less and less clothing, so they now decorate their bodies instead of their clothes? Lindesay Aquino McLean, VA DECODING GENETIC CODES So glad to see ARCHAEOLOGY magazine dipping its toe into genomics and its considerable potential for archaeological research (“Ancient DNA Revolution,” September/October 2024). My experience has been that traditional archaeologists are not particularly drawn to genomic approaches. I’m looking forward to more articles on the subject from you, perhaps on the…

According to a twelfth-century legend, the island of Selja is the birthplace of Norwegian Christianity and the location where the country’s only female martyr, a tenth-century A.D. Irish Christian queen named Sunniva, perished. To avoid marrying an invading pagan tyrant, Sunniva is said to have escaped Ireland by boat along with her retinue and to have washed up on Selja, where they were attacked by Norsemen. Sunniva and her companions, known as the Seljumenn, sought refuge in a cave, praying to God to save them through death—whereupon an angel released a rockslide, crushing the faithful and entombing their bodies. Later written sources record that, in A.D. 996, the Christian king Olaf Tryggvason (reigned A.D. 995–1000) and his bishop came to Selja. They found what they believed were Sunniva’s and the…

A TOP A PLATEAU IN northwest Iran, above rolling pastures hemmed in by snowcapped mountains, rest the ruins of a sanctuary at a site known as Takht-e Soleyman, or Throne of Solomon. More than 1,500 years ago, this was a temple complex dedicated to Zoroastrianism, visited by kings of the Sasanian Empire, which flourished from the third to seventh century A.D. Inside the main temple, a sacred flame dedicated to warriors and military chieftains burned night and day, a testament to the importance of fire in Zoroastrianism. Sasanian kings came to the temple following their coronations, before and after military campaigns, and to celebrate the Persian New Year, Nowruz, which welcomes spring. Nearing the site, the king would dismount his horse and continue uphill on foot about 200 feet to…

EDUCATE Bring archaeology alive in the classroom with the AIA’s lesson plans for grades K through 12. By using these engaging lessons, you can teach students how archaeologists work in the field and in the lab, guide them through experiences with ancient cultures, or even take them on a simulated dig. The lesson plans have recently been updated and are available at no cost at archaeological.org/lesson-plans. In one of the lessons, called Trash Talks, students become archaeologists of their own lives by studying what was thrown away in the classroom or at home to learn how professional archaeologists categorize, observe, and create hypotheses about material culture based on what is discarded. The lesson also teaches that while there is much to learn from what’s left behind, there are always gaps…