THE MAGICAL/MIRACULOUS/METAMORPHIC COSTUME

This post on Public Domain gave me a Gaming Idea, but also one for Real Life.

But in Gaming the idea of full-sets of “Magical Costumes” (antique and unique artifacts, benign, and cursed – perhaps even relical) to Act as Armor, Camouflage, Costume, Cover, and Disguise.

Come to think of it, it gave me a few Literary Ideas as well, especially for scifi and fantasy and pulp.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/recueil-de-la-diversite-des-habits/

SAINT OLAF

Archaeologists in Norway discover church and altar of Viking King Olav Haraldsson

https://sketchfab.com/models/6729409680154b68b703c348e50d06e2/embedKirke/church at Søndregate 18/10 by nikunorway on Sketchfab

100SHARES

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN NORWAY CLAIM TO HAVE DISCOVERED A CHURCH WHERE THE VIKING KING, OLAF HARALDSSON WAS FIRST ENSHRINED AS A SAINT.

Archaeologists working on a site near Trondheim have unearthed the foundations of a wooden stave church and the alter where Olaf may have been enshrined immediately after being declared a saint. The discovery gives credibility to Norse saga accounts surrounding important events of that era.

Director of the project, Anna Petersén said “This is a unique site in Norwegian history in terms of religion, culture and politics. Much of the Norwegian national identity has been established on the cult of sainthood surrounding St. Olaf, and it was here it all began!”

Olaf II Haraldsson, later known as St. Olaf, was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028 till his death in the Battle of Stiklestad. His younger half-brother, Harald Hardrada, was also present at the battle who also became King of Norway in 1047, only to die in a failed invasion of England at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.

In his Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, the medieval Icelandic historian Snorri stated that “following King Olaf Haraldsson’s martyrdom in 1030, his body was buried in Trondheim, or Nidaros” (as it was known) and that the local populus soon reported portents and miracles attributed to the martyred king. A year after his death, Olaf’s coffin was dug up and opened in the presence of the bishop, revealing his miraculously well-preserved body. He was immediately declared a saint by popular acclaim and his body was enshrined above the high altar in the royal church of St. Clement’s church before being moved to the Cathedral some years later.

St. Clement’s church discovered

Archaeologists working for the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) have recently uncovered the stone foundations for a wooden stave church which they believe is the actual ruin of St. Clement’s Church from the dating evidence. Dating evidence and a study of the ruins places its construction at the time Olaf ruled.

During its excavation, the archaeologists uncovered a small rectangular stone-built platform at the building’s east end which is probably the foundation for an altar – probably the very same altar on which St. Olaf’s coffin was placed in 1031. In addition, a small well was also discovered which may be a holy well connected with the saint.

Niku

GOING BLIND INTO THE DARK – RESURRECTED RELICS

GOING BLIND INTO THE DARK

If you ask me ancient archaeological sites like these make for superb adventure and dungeon and plot locales, though of a very different type than the standard dungeon or adventure site.

Very bizarre artefacts, relics, objects, events, rituals, and creatures could easily exist at such sites. I often use modified Real World archaeological sites and place them in my games and novels and stories because they are so ancient, rich, and full of odd and often unexplainable things. (As a matter of fact I have an entirely separate category of “adventure and plot locales” when it comes to ancient and prehistoric archaeological sites for my writings and designs, including the artefacts and events discovered/recovered there.)

It is very good to have odd and unexplainable things in your writings and in your games and milieus that the players and readers can try, like everyone else, to figure out, but can’t really understand, deduce, or explain.

Unknown or unexplained or recently discovered archaeological sites are superbly interesting because unlike many other sites they have already passed into pre-history (or out of history) or little to nothing is known about them until they are accidentally stumbled upon again (by completely different peoples and characters, etc.), and because, of course, they tend to be so ancient all memory of them has been subsequently lost. And of course many of these unknown and unrecorded sites tend to be megalithic and absolutely gargantuan in nature, consisting of many vanished layers of development. Entire campaigns and years and years of adventures, not to mention book sequels, can easily be written around such sites. And, of course, one site often bleeds into another.

That’s a superbly good state of affairs for the reader or player (going blind into the dark or going blind back into the far more ancient things), but it is an entirely excellent thing for the writer and the game designer/game master.

Because at such sites the entirely unexpected and the wholly forgotten should be the most common expectation and the most dangerous memory.

 

NASA Adds to Evidence of Mysterious Ancient Earthworks

By RALPH BLUMENTHALOCT. 30, 2015

One of the enormous earthwork configurations photographed from space is known as the Ushtogaysky Square, named after the nearest village in Kazakhstan. Credit DigitalGlobe, via NASA
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High in the skies over Kazakhstan, space-age technology has revealed an ancient mystery on the ground.
Satellite pictures of a remote and treeless northern steppe reveal colossal earthworks — geometric figures of squares, crosses, lines and rings the size of several football fields, recognizable only from the air and the oldest estimated at 8,000 years old.

The largest, near a Neolithic settlement, is a giant square of 101 raised mounds, its opposite corners connected by a diagonal cross, covering more terrain than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Another is a kind of three-limbed swastika, its arms ending in zigzags bent counterclockwise.

Described last year at an archaeology conference in Istanbul as unique and previously unstudied, the earthworks, in the Turgai region of northern Kazakhstan, number at least 260 — mounds, trenches and ramparts — arrayed in five basic shapes.

 

The Bestamskoe Ring is among the so-called Steppe Geoglyphs in Kazakhstan — at least 260 earthwork shapes made up of mounds, trenches and ramparts, the oldest estimated at 8,000 years old, recognizable only from the air. Credit DigitalGlobe, via NASA
Two weeks ago, in the biggest sign so far of official interest in investigating the sites, NASA released clear satellite photographs of some of the figures from about 430 miles up.

“I’ve never seen anything like this; I found it remarkable,” said Compton J. Tucker, a senior biospheric scientist for NASA in Washington who provided the archived images, taken by the satellite contractor DigitalGlobe, to Mr. Dey and The New York Times.

Ronald E. LaPorte, a University of Pittsburgh scientist who helped publicize the finds, called NASA’s involvement “hugely important” in mobilizing support for further research.

This week, NASA put space photography of the region on a task list for astronauts in the International Space Station. “It may take some time for the crew to take imagery of your site since we are under the mercy of sun elevation angles, weather constraints and crew schedule,” Melissa Higgins of Mission Operations emailed Dr. LaPorte.

The archived images from NASA add to the extensive research that Mr. Dey compiled this year in a PowerPoint lecture translated from Russian to English.

“I don’t think they were meant to be seen from the air,” Mr. Dey, 44, said in an interview from his hometown, Kostanay, dismissing outlandish speculations involving aliens and Nazis. (Long before Hitler, the swastika was an ancient and near-universal design element.) He theorizes that the figures built along straight lines on elevations were “horizontal observatories to track the movements of the rising sun.”

Kazakhstan, a vast, oil-rich former Soviet republic that shares a border with China, has moved slowly to investigate and protect the finds, scientists say, generating few news reports.

“I was worried this was a hoax,” said Dr. LaPorte, an emeritus professor of epidemiology at Pittsburgh who noticed a report on the finds last year while researching diseases in Kazakhstan.

With the help of James Jubilee, a former American arms control officer and now a senior science and technology coordinator for health issues in Kazakhstan, Dr. LaPorte tracked down Mr. Dey through the State Department, and his images and documentation quickly convinced them of the earthworks’ authenticity and importance. They sought photos from KazCosmos, the country’s space agency, and pressed local authorities to seek urgent Unesco protection for the sites — so far without luck.

The earthworks, including the Turgai Swastika, were spotted on Google Earth in 2007 by Dmitriy Dey, a Kazakh archaeology enthusiast. Credit DigitalGlobe, via NASA
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In the Cretaceous Period 100 million years ago, Turgai was bisected by a strait from what is now the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. The rich lands of the steppe were a destination for Stone Age tribes seeking hunting grounds, and Mr. Dey’s research suggests that the Mahandzhar culture, which flourished there from 7,000 B.C. to 5,000 B.C., could be linked to the older figures. But scientists marvel that a nomadic population would have stayed in place for the time required to fell and lay timber for ramparts, and to dig out lake bed sediments to construct the huge mounds, originally 6 to 10 feet high and now 3 feet high and nearly 40 feet across.

Persis B. Clarkson, an archaeologist at the University of Winnipeg who viewed some of Mr. Dey’s images, said these figures and similar ones in Peru and Chile were changing views about early nomads.

“The idea that foragers could amass the numbers of people necessary to undertake large-scale projects — like creating the Kazakhstan geoglyphs — has caused archaeologists to deeply rethink the nature and timing of sophisticated large-scale human organization as one that predates settled and civilized societies,” Dr. Clarkson wrote in an email.

“Enormous efforts” went into the structures, agreed Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, an archaeologist from Cambridge University and a lecturer at Vilnius University in Lithuania, who visited two of the sites last year. She said by email that she was dubious about calling the structures geoglyphs — a term applied to the enigmatic Nazca Lines in Peru that depict animals and plants — because geoglyphs “define art rather than objects with function.”

Dr. Matuzeviciute and two archaeologists from Kostanay University, Andrey Logvin and Irina Shevnina, discussed the figures at a meeting of European archaeologists in Istanbul last year.

With no genetic material to analyze — neither of the two mounds that have been dug into is a burial site — Dr. Matuzeviciute said she used optically stimulated luminescence, a method of measuring doses from ionizing radiation, to analyze the construction material, and came up with a date from one of the mounds of around 800 B.C. Other preliminary studies push the earliest date back more than 8,000 years, which could make them the oldest such creations ever found. Other materials yield dates in the Middle Ages.

Mr. Dey said some of the figures might have been solar observatories akin, according to some theories, to Stonehenge in England and the Chankillo towers in Peru.

“Everything is linked through the cult of the sun,” said Mr. Dey, who spoke in Russian via Skype through an interpreter, Shalkar Adambekov, a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh.

The discovery was happenstance.

Researchers are hoping to marshal support for investigating the earthen mounds that make up figures like this one, the Big Ashutastinsky Cross. Credit DigitalGlobe, via NASA
In March 2007, Mr. Dey was at home watching a program, “Pyramids, Mummies and Tombs,” on the Discovery Channel. “There are pyramids all over the earth,” he recalled thinking. “In Kazakhstan, there should be pyramids, too.”

Soon, he was searching Google Earth images of Kostanay and environs.

 

There were no pyramids. But, he said, about 200 miles to the south he saw something as intriguing — a giant square, more than 900 feet on each side, made up of dots, crisscrossed by a dotted X.

At first Mr. Dey thought it might be a leftover Soviet installation, perhaps one of Nikita S. Khrushchev’s experiments to cultivate virgin land for bread production. But the next day, Mr. Dey saw a second gigantic figure, the three-legged, swastikalike form with curlicue tips, about 300 feet in diameter.

Before the year was out, Mr. Dey had found eight more squares, circles and crosses. By 2012, there were 19. Now his log lists 260, including some odd mounds with two drooping lines called “whiskers” or “mustaches.”

Before setting out to look for the figures on the ground, Mr. Dey asked Kazakh archaeologists whether they knew of such things. The answer was no. In August 2007, he led Dr. Logvin and others to the largest figure, now called the Ushtogaysky Square, named after the nearest village.

“It was very, very hard to understand from the ground,” he recalled. “The lines are going to the horizon. You can’t figure out what the figure is.”

When they dug into one of the mounds, they found nothing. “It was not a cenotaph, where there are belongings,” he said. But nearby they found artifacts of a Neolithic settlement 6,000 to 10,000 years old, including spear points.

Now, Mr. Dey said, “the plan is to construct a base for operations.”

“We cannot dig up all the mounds. That would be counterproductive,” he said. “We need modern technologies, like they have in the West.”

Dr. LaPorte said he, Mr. Dey and their colleagues were also looking into using drones, as the Culture Ministry in Peru has been doing to map and protect ancient sites.

But time is an enemy, Mr. Dey said. One figure, called the Koga Cross, was substantially destroyed by road builders this year. And that, he said, “was after we notified officials.”

 

 

TOP 10 SWORDS

Top 10 Most Famous Swords of the Middle Ages

By

Medievalists.net

– October 26, 2014Posted in: Features

Though I would have included different swords in a couple of instances not a bad list at all.

DIDN’T HELP MUCH

Whoever he was…

But from a gaming perspective this gave me a good idea. Imagine a previously damaged piece of armor, never repaired, whose magic, or virtue, or defect, stemmed from that very damage/mis-shaping. For instance the amror might give either a normal benefit or even some type of magical or supernatural benefit overall, but it might also do things like make the wearer invulnerable at the point of prior damage/injury, or it might make the wearer totally invulnerable to the type of weapon or attack that had previously damaged the armor.

Or, for instance, the armor might make one totally invulnerable to all attacks except the very kind of attack that had previously damaged it. And those are just a  few possible ideas.

The point is that the previous history of, and damage to, the armor would render it useful enough to be of extraordinary benefit in some or most situations, but also vulnerable enough in certain circumstances to be a dangerous liability.

The same of course could easily be true of weapons or any other type of device or artifact. Prior history influences or writes current or future function.

French Cuirass with Cannon-Ball Hole

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This is a French cuirass, a breastplate worn as body armour by French cavalry. The hole is from a British cannonball that smashed through the unlucky soldier’s chest. The Waterloo campaign was the first occasion that British troops found themselves face to face with Napoleon’s heavy cavalry, whose armoured cuirasses and metal helmets made them a daunting foe.

Yet as the British would discover, even these armoured troopers were by no means invincible as this breastplate brings home with shocking force.

The bulk of Napoleon’s heavy cavalry was made up of the twelve regiments of Cuirassiers, but the elite of the arm, in their own eyes at least, were the men of the two regiments of Carabiniers. With a lineage running back to 1679, the Carabiniers had only been given cuirasses in 1809. Unlike the cuirassiers, their armour was gilded with brass rather than being of polished iron, and their old blue uniforms were changed for white. Both regiments served with distinction throughout the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1815 were brigaded together under Général de Brigade Blanchard as part of Général de Division Kellermann’s III Corps de Cavalerie.

Riding in the ranks of the 2eme Carabiniers was 23-year-old trooper François-Antoine Fauveau. A recent recruit, Fauveau’s height of 1.79 metres gave him the ideal stature for a heavy cavalry regiment. These, after all, were intended to be big men on big horses, riding down the enemy by the weight of their charge. The young man’s service papers also record that he had a long, freckled face with a large forehead, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and a small mouth.

During the afternoon of June 18th, the Carabiniers, along with the rest of the French heavy cavalry, were thrown repeatedly against the squares of allied infantry on the ridge forming the centre-right of Wellington’s line. As the cavalry charged, allied gunners kept them under fire until the last moment before dashing for the safety of their supporting infantry, and it was from one of their guns that Fauveau received his death-wound. Although impressive to look at, and capable of turning a sword-stroke or a pistol ball, no cuirass could deflect a cannon shot.
There is, however, a twist to the tale. Family legend has it that when his call-up papers arrived, François-Antoine was on the point of getting married, so his brother joined up, and died, in his place. Yet whoever was wearing it on June 18th, this cuirass serves to emphasise the brutality of Napoleonic warfare at a most personal level.

 

YEAH I WOULD and THE VIKINGS

Yes I would. Scandinavia was a hotbed of technological innovation and experimentation at that general time. Metallurgy, ship-building, social organization, navigation and exploration.

I consider it the early Northern Technological Renaissance.

Which reminds me, the premier of The Vikings is on tonight.

This is superb work by the way.

 

Norwegian Artisan Creates 3D Printed Replica of 6th-Century Sword

by Debra Thimmesch · February 13, 2015

You probably wouldn’t consider 6th century Scandinavia a hotbed of anything, much less technological and artistic innovation, but that’s precisely what was happening in that region of the world as a result of increased migration in an era that’s actually called “the Migration Period.” From around 400 to 550 CE (Common Era), the northern migration of Germanic tribes, following earlier encroachment by the Romans, brought a great deal of change to Scandinavia–now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden–a region that was predominantly tribal and populated with small farms and settlements. This is the epoch that gave birth to the Vikings and it began with an influx of ideas from the south.

One modern-day Norwegian paid homage to that long-ago period of awakening in his home country by replicating an artifact from that era of burgeoning technology and artistic mastery: Teacher, game developer, and 3D design- and printing enthusiast, Nils Anderssen used his expertise to produce a stunningly accurate reproduction of a 6th-century, double-edged, iron sword with a bronze hilt, which was originally crafted in Snartemo in Southern Norway. Anderssen used the cutting-edge technology of today to recreate a symbol of his country’s ancient, expert craftsmanship.

It has certainly been possible before 3D printing to undertake a project like Anderssen’s, but it has been more expensive and far more time-consuming. Also, Anderssen, who has many talents, is not a professional goldsmith, so he was willingly heading into uncharted territory when he began his Snartemo Sword project. What he did possess was an enthusiasm for history and historical artifacts and, of course, a maker’s curiosity and ingenuity, so he began his project, spending a couple of years figuring out how to go about using 3D printing to create a believable replica.

Eventually, Anderssen uploaded the results of his ongoing project on his website, which prompted the National Museum of Art in Oslo, Norway to approach him about creating a replica of the sword as a companion display to the real sword (which, as we understand it, is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo). The museum insisted, quite reasonably, that the copy should resemble the original as closely as possible. Visitors would be able to handle the replica, so it needed to feel like the original sword as well.

Equipped with photos and measurements of the sword, Anderssen used 3D Studio Max to create his 3D design. “In Studio Max,” he explained, “I have good control over the thickness and size of the patterns and therefore avoided problems in printing.” The sword’s sharp edges were easily modeled in 3D Studio Max. His secret was to use “almost exclusively…the basic features of the polygon modeling tools…”

Without the capacity to 3D print in bronze himself, Anderssen needed to find a 3D printing service to help him undertake this major part of the sword project. He did his research and opted to enlist i.materialize, whom, he found, could print larger sizes than most other companies. Not unlike the original process of crafting the sword, Anderssen’s replica was created in parts. After he received the 3D-printed bronze pieces from i.materialize, he smoothed them and then had them gilded. He did make one important change: With his design, the hilt was hollow and later filled with wood to make the finished piece more stable and to facilitate easier assembly.

It isn’t clear how and where the blade was produced, but the various pieces of the sword were assembled by Anderssen and the results were spectacular. He had the pleasure after completing the project of seeing his replica placed next to the original sword, by far the greatest test of his success. As the photo emphasizes, the similarities between the reproduction and the original really are remarkable. What a brilliant means of both preserving history without compromising the physical state of an ancient artifact and allowing those of us who want to appreciate such objects to do so in a more interactive way! We hope that this becomes a trend with museums and archives; 3D printing certainly makes it plausible and far more budget-friendly.

 

Let’s hear your thoughts on Anderssen’s work in the 3D Printed Replica Sword forum thread on 3DPB.com.

MILITARY ANTIQUITIES

William Roy’s ‘Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain’ (1793) Online

• Project

Jan 30, 2015

630

William Roy’s ‘Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain’ (1793) is a classic work on the military conquest of Scotland by the Romans.

Plan shewing the course of the Roman wall called Grime’s Dyke? – from NLS website

One of the earliest detailed descriptions of Roman antiquities in Scotland, with 51 map plates and 174 pages of supporting text.

This website is a complete electronic facsimile of the original. Many newly-discovered Roman remains were recorded in the volume for the first time. As a record of early archaeology in Scotland and of related topographical information regarding Roman sites, it can never be entirely superseded.

Its author, William Roy, is better known for his work on the Military Survey of Scotland (1747-1755), and in founding what became the Ordnance Survey, but he was also a keen antiquarian and man of science, and this splendid volume is also a lasting monument to these interests.

http://maps.nls.uk/roy/antiquities/index.html

THE MEDICINAL TATTOO

Absolutely fascinating. I mean the entire case, and the murder scenario, which I’ve followed for years now, but these recent discoveries about the tattoos, especially those. That really gives me a lot of ideas, both for gaming scenarios and spells and charms, etc., and for fictional stories.

 

Scan finds new tattoos on 5300-year-old Iceman

January 22, 2015

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image: http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2015/01/Buch_Iceman_08-617×496.jpg

Examination. (Credit: ©South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/Eurac/Samadelli/Staschitz)

Republish Reprint

Aaron Deter-Wolf for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A new study has used advanced imaging techniques to identify previously unknown tattoos on the ribcage of the 5300-year old man known as Ötzi, bringing his total number of tattoos to 61.

But first, some context

In September of 1991 hikers in the Ötzal Alps along the border of Austria and Italy happened upon the mummified corpse who became an archaeological celebrity. After Ötzi died at the hands of unknown attackers one late spring or early summer around 3500 BC, his body and belongings were left in a small gully where they were entombed beneath an alpine glacier. A combination of glacial meltwater and extreme cold resulted in natural mummification of his body.

Thanks to more than two decades of analysis, scientists arguably know more about Ötzi’s health and final days than those of any other ancient human. He died at around 45 years of age after being shot in the back with a stone-tipped arrow and bludgeoned. In the 12 hours preceding his death he climbed into the mountains from an Italian valley, and ate a last meal consisting of grains and ibex meat. Ötzi suffered a variety of ailments, including advanced gum disease, gallbladder stones, lyme disease, whipworms in his colon, and atherosclerosis. Researchers have sequenced Ötzi’s entire genome, identified a genetic predisposition to heart disease, and determined that he has 19 surviving male relatives in his genetic lineage. However, a new study shows the Iceman still has secrets left to reveal.

Now for the tattoo part

Ötzi was tattooed, and offers the earliest direct evidence that tattooing was practiced in Europe by at least the Chalcolithic period. However, until now it has been difficult to conclusively catalog all of his marks. Ötzi’s epidermis naturally darkened from prolonged exposure to sub-zero temperatures as he lay beneath the glacier, and as a result some of his tattoos became faint or invisible to the naked eye. Consequently previous studies have identified between 47 and 60 tattoos on the Iceman’s body.

For several decades scientists have recognized that advanced imaging techniques, and particularly the near-infrared spectral region, can be used to reveal faint or invisible tattoos on ancient mummified remains. These techniques are effective because the carbon that comprised most ancient tattoo ink absorbs certain wavelengths differently than the human epidermis. Therefore when mummified skin is illuminated using those wavelengths, carbon-based tattoos appears much darker than the surrounding untattooed skin.

The new examination of Ötzi by Marco Samadelli, Marcello Melis, Matteo Miccoli, Eduard Egarter Vigl, and Albert R. Zink consisted of non-invasive multispectral photographic imaging performed on the Iceman at his home in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. The researchers first slightly thawed Ötzi’s body, which is ordinarily kept at 21.2 °F, in order to eliminate the ice layer from his skin. On reaching 29.2 °F, he was photographed from all sides using a modified 36 MP digital SLR camera outfitted with filters to capture images in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths. These images were then processed using specially-designed software capable of distinguishing and analyzing seven wavelength bands for every recorded pixel. This method, which the authors call “7-Band Hypercolorimetric Multispectral Imaging,” allows for detection of color differences even in the non-visible spectral range.

Samadelli and colleagues were able to detect a previously unrecorded group of tattoos on Ötzi’s lower right rib cage. Those marks consist of four parallel lines between 20 and 25 mm long and are invisible to the naked eye. According to the authors, these make up “the first tattoo … detected on the Iceman’s frontal part of the torso.”

The researchers also created a complete catalog of Ötzi’s tattoos. These include 19 groups of tattooed lines, for a total of 61 marks ranging from 1 to 3 mm in thickness and 7 to 40 mm in length. With the exception of perpendicular crosses on the right knee and left ankle, and parallel lines around the left wrist, the tattooed lines all run parallel to one another and to the longitudinal axis of the body. The greatest concentration of markings is found on his legs, which together bear 12 groups of lines.

And no, they weren’t a tribute to his girlfriend

While the different combinations of lines in Ötzi’s tattoos may have held some underlying symbolic meaning, it appears that their function was primarily medicinal or therapeutic. Previous research has revealed that 80% of the Iceman’s tattoos correspond to classic Chinese acupuncture points used to treat rheumatism, while other tattoos are located along acupuncture meridians used to treat ailments such as back pain and abdominal disorders, from which Ötzi also suffered. In his 2012 book Spiritual Skin: Magical Tattoos and Scarification, anthropologist Dr. Lars Krutak documents an experiment in which Colin Dale of Skin & Bone Tattoo in Copenhagen determined that hand-poked tattoos applied to acupuncture points using a bone needle “could produce a sustained therapeutic effect,” successfully relieving ailments such as rheumatism, tinnitus, and headaches.

Samadelli and colleagues note that Ötzi’s newly-identified tattoos are not located above a joint, and suggest that this particular group of lines was therefore not related to the treatment of lower back pain or degenerative joint diseases. However, after reading the article Krutak was intrigued by the possibility that the new tattoos might be located on or near other classical acupuncture points or meridians, and if so “Perhaps these could be traced to Ötzi’s known pathological conditions, such as gallbladder stones, whipworms in his colon and atherosclerosis.”

Krutak consulted Gillian Powers (M.Ac., L.Ac.), a licensed acupuncturist in Washington, DC, who reported that acupuncture points near the newly-recorded tattoos “can be used to treat the symptoms associated with whipworms (abdominal pain, nausea/vomiting, diarrhea) and gallstones (abdominal pain, nausea/vomiting, etc.), as well as breathing issues.” Powers also noted that the location of the new tattoos is in close proximity to the gallbladder itself, and therefore could have additional effects on gallstone pain.

The new study was published online this week in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

Aaron Deter-Wolf is a Prehistoric Archaeologist for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology and an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University, where he teaches the Anthropology of Tattooing. In 2013 he co-edited the volume Drawing with Great Needles: Ancient Tattoo Traditions of North America You can follow his research at http://tdoa.academia.edu/AaronDeterWolf.

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Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113319184/scan-finds-new-tattoos-on-5300-year-old-iceman-012215/#i2td7wjDmPPE7UBa.99

 

ORICHALCUM? – THE RICHES YET DISCOVERED

This opens up a whole new and fascinating venue of ancient, historical, fictional, and even gaming metallurgy. And shipwreck, ruins, mining, production, and smithing sites that would produce such alloys and materials.

Divers Retrieve ‘Atlantis’ Metal Orichalcum from Ancient Shipwreck

By Rhodi Lee, Tech Times | January 10, 2:01 AM

Atlantis Map
Divers exploring an ancient shipwreck discovered 39 ingots believed to be made of the legendary metal orichalcum that Plato said was forged and used in the city of Atlantis.
(Photo : Athanasius Kircher)

A group of divers who were exploring a 2,600 year-old shipwreck off the coast of Sicily discovered ingots believed to be made of orichalcum, a metal that the ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote to have been forged in the legendary city of Atlantis.

The orichalcum, whose composition and origin remain widely debated, is said to have been invented by a mythological Greek-Phoenician alchemist named Cadmus and was considered very valuable in the ancient times it ranked next to gold.

In the fourth century B.C., Plato, one of the greatest geniuses of all time, mentioned the orichalcum in the Critias dialogue with his description of Atlantis being a realm that flashes with the red light of the mysterious metal.
He said that the orichalcum was mined there and that was used to cover the floors and structures of floors of Poseidon’s temple. Many experts today believe that the metal is a brass-like alloy produced in the ancient times using a process known as cementation.

Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily’s superintendent of the Sea Office, said that 39 ingots had been found by a team of divers who were exploring a shipwreck that dates back to the first half of the sixth century.

The sunken ship, which was found about 1,000 feet from the coast and at a depth of 10 feet, is believed to have likely been transporting cargo from either Greece or Asia Minor when it sank on its way to the port city of Gela in southern Sicily, probably during a storm.

Tusa hailed the finding as a unique discovery given that no similar object has yet been discovered before.

“Nothing similar has ever been found,” Tusa said. “We knew orichalcum from ancient texts and a few ornamental objects.”

An expert who conducted an analysis of the 39 ingots using X-ray fluorescence found that these were an alloy with up to 80 percent copper, up to 20 percent zinc and a small percentage of lead, iron and nickel.

Some experts however said that the newly found artifacts were not made from the orichalcum. Enrico Mattievich, who used to teach at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), is one of the scholars who do not think the metal has a brass-like nature.

Contrary to views of other experts, Mattievich claims that a metallic alloy characterized by fire-like reflections similar to the Plato’s description was found in metallic jaguars associated with the Chavín civilization that thrived in the Peruvian Andes from 1200 B.C. to 200 B.C and these were made of 9 percent copper, 15 percent silver and 76 percent gold.

 

TIME, AND CIRCUMSTANCE

Once again, not only are Real World events like this filled with superb history for fictional material and stories, but they are filled with excellent ideas for gaming adventures, scenarios, and/or campaigns.

For instance suppose a character or party stumbles upon an ancient “time capsule” (either after a nearly fruitless search or entirely by accident) only to discover something totally unexpected? Like a long-forgotten relic.

Also, suppose it is sealed in some unknown or unusual fashion? That could be a side or sub-adventure all on it’s own.

An excellent hook.

 

1795 Time Capsule Buried By Sam Adams, Paul Revere To Be Opened

January 6, 2015 6:11 AM

The 1795 time capsule (Photo credit: Museum of Fine Arts)

Related Tags:

1795, CBS Boston, Massachusetts, Paul Revere, Sam Adams, STATE HOUSE, Time Capsule, WBZ

BOSTON (AP) — The public is getting its first glimpse inside a time capsule dating to 1795 and believed placed by Samuel Adams and other Revolutionary War figures.

Officials already have a good idea of the contents, which will be displayed Tuesday evening at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The original capsule was made of cowhide and believed to have been embedded in a cornerstone when construction on the state Capitol building began in 1795. Adams was governor at the time.

The contents were shifted to a copper box in 1855 which was unearthed last month at the Statehouse. Officials say old records and X-rays taken in December after the box was located and removed indicate it contains old coins, documents, newspapers and a metal plate owned by Paul Revere.

The main mystery has been the condition of the items, which experts believe partially deteriorated over time.

Pamela Hatchfield, a conservator at the museum, said the capsule initially was unearthed accidentally in 1855 when some modifications were made to the building.

Officials acknowledge the items might not be in great shape.

Secretary of State William Galvin said notes from that era indicated that officials washed some of the contents with acid before putting them in the new copper box. He also said records show it was a humid day when the items were restored and the corner of the Statehouse where the capsule was reinstalled has had a water leakage problem for decades.

It’s the second time capsule to resurface in Boston in recent months.

In October, a capsule dating to 1901 was uncovered in a lion statue adorning the Old State House. That contained newspaper clippings, letters and a book on foreign policy.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON

THE UNKNOWN QUEEN

You know, stuff like this not only makes for great history, it makes for superb gaming material and excellent fictional materials. A party goes out to explore a set of ruins and stumbles across another set of ruins, or a tomb, totally unexpectedly, and discovers within it things far more valuable, and far more dangerous, than they had originally anticipated.

Tomb of Fifth Dynasty queen found in Egypt

Updated yesterday at 5:01pmSun 4 Jan 2015, 5:01pm

Photo: A painted limestone statue of Pharaoh Neferefre at the Cairo Museum. (Supplied: Wikipedia/Jon Bodsworth)

Related Story: Skeleton found in ancient Greek tomb dating back to Alexander the Great

Related Story: Stunning Alexander-era statues found at ancient tomb

Map: Egypt

Czech archaeologists have unearthed the tomb of a previously unknown queen believed to have been the wife of Pharaoh Neferefre who ruled 4,500 years ago, officials in Egypt say.

The tomb was discovered in Abu Sir, an Old Kingdom necropolis south-west of Cairo where there were several pyramids dedicated to pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty, including Neferefre.

The name of his wife was not known before the find, antiquities minister Mamdouh al-Damaty said in a statement.

He identified her as Khentakawess and said for the “first time we have discovered the name of this queen who had been unknown before the discovery of her tomb”.

That would make her Khentakawess III, as two previous queens with the same name have already been identified.

Her name and rank had been inscribed on the inner walls of the tomb, probably by the builders, Mr Damaty said.

“This discovery will help us shed light on certain unknown aspects of the Fifth Dynasty, which along with the Fourth Dynasty, witnessed the construction of the first pyramids,” he said.

Miroslav Barta, who heads the Czech Institute of Egyptology mission that made the discovery, said the tomb was found in Neferefre’s funeral complex.

“This makes us believe that the queen was his wife,” Mr Barta said.

An official at the antiquities ministry said the tomb dated from the middle of the Fifth Dynasty (2994-2345BC).

Archaeologists also found about 30 utensils – 24 made of limestone and four of copper – the statement said.

AFP

THERE IS A SECRET, KEEP IT WELL

There is a Secret few will know
Until that day it rises up,
For buried deep beneath the Earth
Lie coiling serpents in a cup,

Long before came history
To marque out frontiers of the past,
There toiled and bled unspoken days
That men today should flee aghast,

Wonders weird and terrors dark
Did stalk about the world those nights,
When those we’d hardly recognize
Did marvels by their hoary might,

Too long in sand or sea or clay
Has lain the wreckage of their age,
But those with other eyes to see
May still by peerage time assuage,

Specters worn by passage deep
Spectacular in deathless climes
Have breached the wall of life again,
And up from Hell made dreadful climb;

I’ve watched from shores by looking glass
As all these things have sure approached,
As seas disgorge the ancient rimes
That feed those things that do encroach,

And man with gore and screams of pain
Will roil in grave and long revolt,
But to what end I cannot name
Of torture, doom, or final hope?

Chaos will man gather round
Calling for it from afar,
A Heart of Stone imperfect cut
Whose pulse does beat for blood bizarre,

Like nothing man thinks anymore
Except in Secrets buried deep,
When questioned if he is in truth
A Man like God, or that which creeps,

It is not for me to say
What Man will be or where he goes,
Knowing only that I watch
As man revisits with his Ghosts,

Yet this I’ll say and temper hard
With all I know of what’s no more,
The day comes swift when men will find
That death is what they least abhor…

 

because these things are engraven by Tome and Tomb

THE HERODIAN ERA TEMPLE

Although not generally listed as such, it was truly one of the Wonders of the ancient world.

The Temple Mount in the Herodian period (37 BC–70 A.D.)

Leen Ritmeyer   •  12/03/2014

This post was originally published on Leen Ritmeyer’s website Ritmeyer Archaeological Design. It has been republished with permission. Visit the website to learn more about the history of the Temple Mount and follow Ritmeyer Archaeological Design on Facebook.

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Following on from our previous drawing, the Temple Mount during the Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods, we now examine the Temple Mount during the Herodian period. This was, of course, the Temple that is mentioned in the New Testament.

In 19 B.C. the master-builder, King Herod the Great, began the most ambitious building project of his life—the rebuilding of the Temple and the Temple Mount in lavish style. To facilitate this, he undertook a further expansion of the Hasmonean Temple Mount by extending it on three sides, to the north, west and south. Today’s Temple Mount boundaries still reflect this enlargement.

The cutaway drawing below allows us to recap on the development of the Temple Mount so far:

A visualization of this Temple Mount was made possible by combining the historical sources with the results of archaeological exploration. The main historical source is the first-century historian Josephus Flavius. His works, The Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, although prone to exaggeration, are indispensable for this period. Also invaluable is the Mishnah, the earliest code of rabbinic law, written about 200 A.D., particularly the Tractate Middot, which deals with measurements. The New Testament adds further detail and context. All this was augmented by the results of the excavations to the south and west of the Temple Mount following the Six-Day War in 1967.

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Read “Quarrying and Transporting Stones for Herod’s Temple Mount” by Leen Ritmeyer as it was published in BAR.

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Herod’s extension of the Eastern Wall to the north required the filling in of a deep valley to the north of the pre-Herodian Temple Mount. The Shushan Gate remained the only gate in the Eastern Wall. Towers were erected at each corner and a large water reservoir was built at the northeast corner, the so-called Pool of Israel.

The Western Wall, which had four gates, was placed some 82 feet (25 m) outside the square platform with its southwest corner built on the opposite side of the Tyropoeon Valley.

The Southern Wall featured two gates, the Double Gate and the Triple Gate, often erroneously referred to as the Huldah Gates.

The most fortified feature in the Northern Wall was the massive Antonia Fortress (right in the drawing below), built to protect the Temple against attacks coming from the north and to guard the mount in times of strife. A large reservoir, the Pool of Israel (left) provided additional protection to the Temple Mount.

Once the platform was completed, double colonnades, or porticoes, were built above the outer walls to provide shelter from the elements. A huge hall called the Royal Stoa, with four rows of columns, was erected on the southern end. The pre-existing eastern portico that stood on the square mount was left unchanged. As it belonged to a pre-Herodian period, it was called Solomon’s Porch. Near the center of this platform a new gold-covered Temple was constructed that in turn was surrounded by many other buildings.

In 70 A.D., this splendid structure that had taken 46 years to build (John 2.20) was destroyed by the Romans. The only vestiges of the compound to survive the destruction were the four retaining walls that supported the Temple platform; the best known today is the Western Wall.

This drawing is the 7th in this series that were made specially for the new Temple Mount guide book that is awaiting publication. For the previous drawings see: Mount Moriah, Jebusites, Solomon, Hezekiah, Nehemiah and the Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods.

Jerusalem lies at the heart of Biblical archaeology. In the free eBook Jerusalem Archaeology: Exposing the Biblical City, learn about the latest finds in the Biblical world’s most vibrant city.

Leen Ritmeyer is an archaeological architect who has been involved in all of Jerusalem’s major excavations. He was chief architect of the Temple Mount Excavations, directed by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar, and of the Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, directed by the late Prof. Nahman Avigad, both of the Hebrew University. Together with his wife, Kathleen, he runs a firm called Ritmeyer Archaeological Design, which produces teaching and learning tools used throughout the world and offers consultancy on archaeological background and illustration. In 2006, his major work, The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, was published after thirty years of intensive research.

THE QUEST: PART ONE

The Archaeological Quest for the Earliest Christians

Part one of a two-part examination

Douglas Boin   •  12/01/2014

The race for the next spectacular artifact is on. Ancient bone boxes, lost manuscripts encoded with secret messages about Jesus, even fragments of crumbled papyrus—some no bigger than the receipts we stuff in our pockets—promise hope of a brave new world in Biblical studies. The assumption seems to be that if we just look a little harder, if we just dig a little bit deeper, one day we’ll find the one piece of evidence that will take us back to the earliest age of Jesus and his followers. To many, it’s an urgent archaeological mission with profound implications for the history of faith.Just don’t hold your breath. For almost two hundred years after the crucifixion, Roman cities are entirely devoid of any trace of early Christians; to date, no one has ever found any object that’s been plausibly connected to them. As an archaeologist and a historian, I think it’s time we start taking this silence seriously and stop trying to filling it with any more sensational “discoveries.” Many of Jesus’ followers—men and women who lived in the first, second and even third-century Roman Mediterranean—simply didn’t want to be found.

That’s not exactly the first thing that usually comes to mind when we think about early Christians, but the evidence is insurmountable at this point. For almost four hundred years, there were no manger scenes anywhere in the Roman world. There were no crucifixes displayed in homes or schools. There weren’t even any bound Bibles tucked into church pews. In fact, we actually don’t even know what “churches” looked like, at least, not until the middle of the third century. For a community that would later come to remember its earliest history as a time of vicious persecution, answered with outspoken acts of martyrdom, this archaeological silence poses a slight problem. Where are these people?

There are two assumptions people usually rely upon to explain the silence. The first is that Scripture, which is to say, the Second Commandment of the Hebrew Bible, prohibited Jesus’ followers from dabbling in anything artistic. The second is that early Christians were too poor and disenfranchised to leave anything noticeable behind. New archaeological and historical research suggests that neither of these traditional explanations are adequate. This post is the first in a two-part series that will explore each of these issues, charting some new directions in the study of early Christianity.

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New from BAS: Partings—How Judaism and Christianity Became Two. Never before has this multi-faceted process been documented so engagingly and so authoritatively by so many eminent scholars. Read more >>

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So let’s tackle the first question. Did the Mosaic commandment forbidding the creation of graven images (Deuteronomy 5:8) really prohibit Jesus’ earliest followers from pursuing their own artistic talents? Recent work on Jewish material culture during the late Second Temple period has shed new light on this topic. At the center of this picture is a twenty-year-old boy, Alexander the Great, and the legacy he left behind in the eastern Mediterranean in the third, second and first centuries B.C.By the time of Alexander’s successors—the Seleucid family in Asia Minor and the northern Levant, the Ptolemies in Egypt and the southern Levant—sounds of Hellenistic art and craftsmanship were beginning to echo on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. A visit to two cities makes that clear. At the city of Hellenistic Marisa (today known as Maresha, a site near Bethlehem), archaeologists found tomb chambers with paintings of animals and landscapes that are stylistically similar to those seen at sites like Vergina, Greece, an important site for the Macedonian kings. The animals depicted at Maresha may even have been inspired by a famous Hellenistic zoo, organized by the Ptolemies at Alexandria. The paintings at Maresha have been dated to the third and second centuries B.C. (see image above).

Evidence in Jerusalem reveals similar examples of cultural exchange during this time. Representations of ships and anchors appear in many Jerusalem tombs during the late Second Temple period. Some monumental tombs built in the Kidron Valley, in the shadow of the Second Temple, incorporate architectural styles that were also widely popular. Both the tomb of the sons of Hezir, dated to the second century B.C, and the so-called Tomb of Absalom, dated to the first century A.D., draw upon Greek columns, capitals, friezes—even Egyptian pyramid forms (see image right).Jewish individuals and groups during the late Second Temple period may have been waging fierce debates amongst themselves about the role of Hellenistic customs in the formation of their Jewish identity—debates we pick up in our textual sources, like 2 Maccabees—but the archaeological evidence is clear: The Second Commandment given to Moses did not prevent Jews from making images. It prevented them from making idols. Appreciating this nuance in the history of Jewish art and archaeology is an important first step to seeing early Christian archaeology in a new light, too.

In sum, how have we ever come to believe that Christians harbored an innate artistic hostility of their own, taught to them in the Second Commandment, when Jews who read their own Scripture came to entirely opposite ideas? To understand why we haven’t been able to find Jesus’ earliest followers means setting aside long-held assumptions like these. In my second post, I’ll tackle another one: Were early Christians so poor that they were never able to afford nice things? The answer to that question, too, is not the one we may think we know.

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THE MYTHICAL SILK ROAD CEMETARY

I love the Silk Road. I’ve been studying it since college and I once did a major paper on Buddhist missionary efforts Westward and Christian missionary efforts Eastwards along the Silk Road.

Superb discovery.

1,700-Year-Old Silk Road Cemetery Contains Mythical Carvings

by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | November 24, 2014 07:40am ET

An ancient cemetery – silk road

[Pin It] A cemetery dating back around 1,700 years has been discovered in Kucha, a city in China. The city played an important role along the Silk Road trade routes that connected China to the Roman Empire. Archaeologists have uncovered 10 tombs in the cemetery, seven of which are large structures made with bricks. This image shows part of the cemetery facing north.
Credit: Chinese Cultural Relics

A cemetery dating back roughly 1,700 years has been discovered along part of the Silk Road, a series of ancient trade routes that once connected China to the Roman Empire.

The cemetery was found in the city of Kucha, which is located in present-day northwest China. Ten tombs were excavated, seven of which turned out to be large brick structures.

One tomb, dubbed “M3,” contained carvings of several mythical creatures, including four that represent different seasons and parts of the heavens: the White Tiger of the West, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the Black Turtle of the North and the Azure Dragon of the East. [See photos of the ancient Silk Road cemetery]

The M3 tomb also “consists of a burial mound, ramp, sealed gate, tomb entrance, screen walls, passage, burial chamber and side chamber” the researchers wrote in a report published recently in the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.

The cemetery was first found in July 2007 and was excavated by the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, with assistance from local authorities. The research team, led by Zhiyong Yu, director of the Xinjiang Archaeological Institute, published the findings in Chinese in the journal Wenwu. The article was recently translated into English and published in the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.

Who was buried here?

The identity of the people buried in the cemetery is a mystery. The cemetery had been robbed in the past and no writing was found that indicates the names of those buried or their positions in life.

The seven large brick tombs were likely constructed for people of wealth, the researchers said.

But, when the skeletal remains were analyzed, the researchers found that the tombs had been reused multiple times. Some of the tombs contain more than 10 occupants, and the “repeated multiple burials warrant further study,” the researchers wrote.

City on the Silk Road

The excavators think the cemetery dates back around 1,700 years, to a time when Kucha was vital to controlling the Western Frontiers (Xiyu) of China. Since the Silk Road trade routes passed through the Western Frontiers, control of this key region was important to China’s rulers.

“In ancient times, Kucha was called Qiuci in Chinese literature. It was a powerful city-state in the oasis of the Western Frontiers” the researchers wrote.

For the dynasties that flourished in China around 1,700 years ago “the conquest and effective governance of Kucha would enable them to control all the oasis city-states in the Western Frontiers,” the researchers said.

In fact, one ancient saying was, “if you have Kucha, only one percent of the states in the Western Frontiers remain unsubmissive.”

Chinese Cultural Relics is a new journal that translates Chinese-language articles, originally published in the journal Wenwu, into English. The discovery of the 1,700-year-old cemetery was included in its inaugural issue.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

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THE SAXON SMITHS

Incredible work in any age or epoch …

Secrets of the Staffordshire Hoard: Skills of the Saxon smiths revealed

Nov 21, 2014 Features 0

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The Staffordshire Hoard is a glittering reminder of the creative talents of the Anglo-Saxons – but now a pioneering research project is revealing that their skills were more far sophisticated than previously imagined, as Carly Hilts learned. 

When the Staffordshire Hoard was discovered in 2009 (CA 236), the exquisite artistry of its contents immediately captured the public imagination, vividly demonstrating the creative powers of Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths. Now, however, a pioneering research project (undertaken at the British Museum and funded by English Heritage) has revealed that their techniques were more sophisticated still.

New analysis, examining the gold content of over 100 pieces from the hoard, as well as other Anglo-Saxon objects, has revealed that Early Medieval craftsmen were using complicated chemical techniques to enrich the outer surface of golden objects, transforming their appearance to that of items made from much purer metal.

Revolutionary research

Most of the objects that we call ‘gold’, whether ancient or modern, are in fact made using alloys containing copper and silver (for example, 18-carat gold is 75% gold and 25% other metals). The gold worked by Anglo-Saxon smiths was no different, and as part of the ongoing programme of research and conservation being carried out on the Staffordshire Hoard, metals expert Dr Eleanor Blakelock carried out a pilot study on 16 objects to examine their composition.

After using a Scanning Electron Microscope to analyse the surface of each object, pinprick-sized areas of the surface were then scraped away to reveal the core. When comparing these results, she noticed a marked difference: the gold on the surfaces of the objects was much purer, with much less copper and silver present.
These surprising findings prompted a wider project, involving another 98 hoard objects, as well as 36 Anglo-Saxon items from the British Museum, and one from the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in the largest study of its kind ever undertaken on Anglo-Saxon gold. In many, the same pattern appeared. Why?

When buried, copper tends to leach out of alloys naturally, affected by surrounding soil conditions, but silver does not. For such a disparity in an object’s silver content to exist – in some cases the pieces have a core composition of 25%-50% silver, but only 6%-10% silver on the surface – Eleanor argues that this suggests the silver was being deliberately removed from the outer surface in order to make the objects look more golden.

Closely guarded secret?

Such an intricate process may have been a closely guarded secret among Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths – certainly no description of how it was achieved has survived from the period – and for now its details remain obscure.

Eleanor suggests that the technique may have been similar to cementation, a process sometimes used in modern metallurgy, wherein a salt bath of iron-rich minerals (for example, Roman tile dust) is heated, producing acid. This causes the silver in any gold alloy placed into the bath to separate and rise to the surface. Metal treated in this way initially looks dark and pitted, but it burnishes to a beautiful golden hue.

Many of the most famous objects from the Staffordshire Hoard seem to have been enhanced in this manner, including the front of the folded cross, as well as many of the filigree-decorated sword pommels, and gold surrounding cloisonné garnet work, such as on the ‘sword pyramids’ and the set of fittings for a single-edged seax blade.

All that glitters…

Does this suggest that crafty goldsmiths were manipulating the surface of their creations in order to cheat their patrons by passing off lower quality material as pure gold? Not necessarily: in some cases the silver content seems to have been reduced for artistic reasons, particularly on objects decorated with filigree, such as the sword pommels and the pectoral cross. Here their backing sheets have been enhanced, but the delicate patterns of gold wires soldered onto them have not, creating a striking colour contrast.

These findings also have important implications for how Anglo-Saxon objects are dated, as previously an artefact’s surface gold content was often used to help establish its age. This is because a lot of Anglo-Saxon gold is thought to have its origins in recycled Continental coins, which became much less readily available in Britain after the 630s-640s, when incursions by the Islamic Caliphate into the Levant wreaked havoc on the economy of the Byzantine Empire. If, as this study suggests surface composition is not an accurate indication of an object’s actual gold content, whole swathes of material may need to be revisited.

Splendid new display

These findings were announced this October at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s launch of their new Staffordshire Hoard permanent displays (funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Garfield Weston). Previously housed in a small room where only a small number of key pieces could be shown, now about 70% of the 4,000 hoard fragments have been spread across long tables that explain how the unique collection is being conserved, and explore the latest findings. As this story is still developing, the displays are designed to be flexible, allowing pieces to be moved in and out as required by researchers, and for information to evolve as new developments emerge.

‘People will be learning about the hoard with us,’ said Conservation Co-ordinator Pieta Greaves.

This aspirational attitude is seen throughout the gallery: at one end of the ‘research table’, boxes of unidentified fragments form a pyramid that the team hope will gradually shrink as bits are matched and rejoined. Pieces of an ornate helmet have also been mounted on a Perspex head in an optimistically large box – with work on the hoard’s decorated silver foils planned to start in the New Year, the team hope to identify more fragments soon.

Meanwhile, other areas explore the hoard’s international story: the likely origin of its raw materials, and the cultural influences visible within its artwork. Elsewhere, a reconstructed meadhall – a structure that lay at the heart of the elite warrior culture reflected in the hoard – brings matters closer to home, introducing Anglo-Saxon England (and a crash-course in the Old English language). Star objects form the culmination of the displays, in an enclosed area dubbed ‘the Treasury’. With artefacts spotlit in this shadowy space, and a deep red lining, the showcase creates the feel of being inside a jewellery box.

From its outset, work on the hoard has been a collaborative effort, something that the new gallery is keen to reflect – there is no single curatorial voice here. Rather, video screens introduce the thoughts and theories of a host of ‘talking heads’, from archaeologists and conservators to the hoard’s finder, Terry Herbert, and visitors to previous exhibitions on the finds.

Above all, the space is filled with the excitement of an ongoing process of discovery, where, as we have seen from the latest tranche of research, the new questions arising from the research are in many ways just as important as the answers being revealed.

IVAN’S BLADE?

Sure look like it would have been a beautiful thing when new. The inscription is incredible…

Could rare sword have belonged to Ivan the Terrible?

By Anna Liesowska and Derek Lambie

21 November 2014

Intrigue over how German-made 12th century blade, adorned in Sweden, reached Siberia.

The scientists would be keen to hear from European experts who could throw more light on its origins. Picture: The Siberian Times

The medieval sword was discovered buried under a tree in Novosibirsk region, and scientists are keen to unlock its secrets. The weapon was unearthed by accident  in 1975 and remains the only weapon of its kind ever found in Siberia.

An exciting new theory has now emerged that it could have belonged to Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and came from the royal armoury as a gift at the time of the conquest of Siberia. The hypothesis, twinning an infamous Russian ruler and a revered battle hero, could turn it into one of the most interesting archaeological finds in Siberian history, though for now much remains uncertain.

What Siberian experts are sure about is that the beautifully engraved weapon was originally made in central Europe, and most likely in the Rhine basin of Germany before going to the Swedish mainland, or the island of Gotland, to be adorned with an ornate silver handle and Norse ruse pattern.

The scientists would be keen to hear from European experts who could throw more light on its origins.

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The blade was made in the Rhine basin of Germany in late 12th or early 13th century. Pictures: The Siberian Times

‘Both sides of the blade have ‘rune’ inscription which was abbreviated’, said archaeologist Vyacheslav Molodin, the man who led the excavation – in Vengerovo district – which found the weapon. ‘The style of calligraphy proves that it was made by people with knowledge of advanced epigraphic writing techniques’.

Russia’s leading experts at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg decoded the Latin wording on the one metre long blade.

The main inscription reads: N[omine] M[atris] N[ostri] S[alva]t[ORis] Et[eRni] D[omini] S[alvatoRis] E[teRni], with an additional one on the same side of the blade saying C[hRis]t[us] Ih[esus] C[hRis]t[us]. This means:’In the name of the mother of our saviour eternal, eternal Lord and Saviour. Christ Jesus Christ.’

The inscription on the reverse side is harder to read, but the first word  ‘NOMENE’ – clearly seen –  helps reconstruct the rest as ‘N[omine] O[mnipotentis]. M[ateR]. E[teRni] N[omin]e’, which means ‘In the name of the Almighty. The Mother of God. In the name of Eternal’.

There has been widespread debate about how the sword ended up in Russia, with assumptions it was either carried along a trade route, or taken as a spoil of war from skirmishes in the region. In one of the hypothesis, Academician Molodin has suggested the blade –  currently stored in the collections of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk – could have been taken from Ivan the Terrible’s armoury and brought to Siberia by the legendary warrior Ivan Koltso, ahead of the conquest of the region.

It was during Ivan’s reign in the late 16th century that Russia started large scale exploration and colonisation of Siberia. Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich was hired to take on the Tatar forces under Khan Kuchum and Murza Karachi and lead the eastward expansion of the empire, with the sword a possible gift from the Kremlin.

The sword was uncovered at the base of a tree in the Baraba forest-steppe, less than three kilometres from where it is thought Koltso, Yermak’s closest ally, died in battle. He was declared hero in February 1583, with church bells ringing out in Moscow, when it was announced he and Yermak had taken the capital of the Siberian Khanate, Kashlyk. But his new-found celebrity status did not last long, and he was killed with 40 men during an ambush 18 months later.

‘It was as if it just dscended from some knights’ fairytale’. Pictures: The Siberian Times

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Molodin puts a health warning on his new theory but says: ‘Imagine the last battle of the Cossack detachment headed by Ivan Koltso. The attack was unexpected. Picture someone immediately being killed by a treacherous stab in the back, and someone else grabbing a sword to fight the advancing Tatars.

‘They are unequal forces and the Cossacks are trying to break through the crowds of enemies, but the ranks of the fighters are melting rapidly. Ivan strikes not one opponent. In his hands, the glittering giant sword, a gift from the Russian Tsar.

‘In desperation Ivan and a few survivors of the Cossacks literally hack their way to their waiting horses.

‘Ivan’s leg is already in the stirrup and he is racing on the steppe, with his horse taking him further from the bloody battle. Behind him they chase, with arrows flying. And then, suddenly, the sword falls out of the hands of the hero and drops to the ground under a young birch tree.

‘I am not sure that I am right, imagining all this, but the legend is really beautiful.’

He told Science First Hand magazine: ‘I must note that none of the scientists mentioned it, perhaps because they didn’t take it seriously. The only person who really liked that theory was (noted) Academician (Alexei) Okladnikov.  He even mentioned it in one of his last works.

‘The hypnotise looks so brave and even fantastical that these days it is unlikely that I would mention it in a scientific work. But on the other hand, it does look very beautiful, plus life can often be more incredible than anything fantastical.

‘Even now when I am writing this I believe that we should not exclude the version that the sword could have got to Baraba together with Yermak’s squadrons. Despite his Cossacks having sabres and firearms, they were still using swords. So it was quite possible they were using them during that trip’.

Vyacheslav Molodin: ‘Life can often be more incredible than anything fantastical’. Picture: The Siberian Times

It was during the summer of 1975 that Molodin, then a young archaeologist, had been working on the banks of the River Om with a group of students from Omsk and Novosibirsk. Their aim was to study the settlements and cemeteries of the Bronze Age, with a focus on group burials.

At a separate site another group of students had been excavating near a large birch tree, but were under instruction from Molodin not to go near it, certain that no one was buried there. However, Alexander Lipatov, the head of the excavation team, disobeyed the brief and stumbled upon what they thought was a rusty scythe just five centimetres under the grass. As they dug further it became apparent it was a large sword.

Mr Molodin told The Siberian Times: ‘The sword wasn’t hidden deliberately, or ‘buried’. It was lying at a depth of 3-5 cm, right under the soil near the birth tree which was close to an old road. I remember the moment we found it as if it was yesterday.

‘We were not supposed to work in the area where we found the sword. It was one of my younger colleagues Alexander Lipatov who decided to ‘prolong’ the excavation site towards a big birch tree. I remember getting annoyed when I saw it – the area along the birch tree roots was visibly very hard to dig, while my estimates were that the burial mound was not stretching as far as the tree, so there was no point to clear up that space anyway.

‘I expressed my reservations about it to Alexander, and he accepted them, but said that he was nervous about making a mistake in defining the site’s borders and decided to go a bit further ‘just in case’.

‘If it wasn’t for his ‘mistake’ we would have never found the sword.

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‘It was incredibly well-preserved, yet I was scared to raise it from the ground’. Pictures: The Siberian Times

‘It was close to lunch time when I was suddenly asked to come to that plot of land near the birch tree to ‘check up some piece of iron’, as they said. ‘Most likely it would be a scythe’, I thought to myself as I walked towards the site where they found it.

‘Looking back, I see how it was a pure stroke of luck. Every man in our expedition longed to take it and hold it his hands, it was an incredible piece of armament’.

Mr Molodin told Science First Hand magazine: ‘Carefully and slowly we cleaned the soil off, uncovering a strip of iron, which was wider at one end, and narrower at the other. It took us an hour to clear the soil completely to see a massive sword, about a metre long with a typical iron hilt of medieval knight’s swords with a clearly expressed crossbar guard and tripartite pommel.

‘It was incredibly well-preserved, yet I was scared to raise it from the ground. I was scared it would fall into pieces in my hands.

‘Finally I put my thin bladed knife underneath the sword and raised it… You know, I’ve seen swords like this in museums and in scientific books, but it was my first time ever to hold it in my hands. It was as if it just descended from some knights’ fairytale.

‘I slowly twisted it, noting sparkles of silver on the guard and blade. It was so well preserved that you could in fact use it in the battle almost straight away. Others took to look at the find, too.

‘Finally like a water through rushing through a dam, the shock of realising what we’ve just found broke through and we began talking all at the same time. I can’t describe the feeling of surprise and excitement.

‘How did it get here, in the heart of the Western Siberia, this clearly so European looking medieval sword? How did it preserve so well? Where did it come from? ‘

‘Every man in our expedition longed to take it and hold it his hands, it was an incredible piece of armament’. Pictures: The Siberian Times

Swords such as these were not typical in Russia or across Asia, and it was more similar to those widely used by European knights. After extensive research on ancient weapons, Vyacheslav Molodin prepared a report on his findings and concluded it was from Europe and dated to the late 12th or early 13th century.

Questions as to how the sword reached Russia from Sweden have been asked since 1976, with the first theory that it was carried during trade missions.

According to Arab historians, in the middle of the 12th century there was an ancient northern path through Russia to the River Ob, called the ‘Zyryanskaya road’ or ‘Russky tes’. Over the centuries archaeologists have found a treasure trove of coins, silver vessels and medieval jewellery in the Urals and lower reaches of the Ob, having travelled from the west.

The downside to this theory is that the steppe, where the sword was found, is separated from the lower and middle Ob by hundreds of kilometres of rugged forests and swamps. Others have argued the weapon could easily have travelled east as a result of bartering, or as a spoil of war from skirmishes between the Turkic people of the steppe and the nomadic Urgic population of the Siberian taiga.

SIBERIAN LAKE FORTRESS

BOO-YAH!

And there ya go… extremely nice source material.

17 November, 2014 – 01:43 aprilholloway

1,300-year-old fortress-like structure on Siberian lake continues to mystify experts

It is one of the most mysterious archaeological sites in Russia – an ancient complex engulfing a small island in the center of a remote lake in the mountains of southern Siberia. At first glance, it appears to be an ancient fortress, its perimeter of high walls constructed to keep out enemies. However, others have proposed the 1,300-year-old structure may have been a summer palace, monastery, memorial complex, ritual center, or astronomical observatory. According to the Siberian Times, more than a century after its rediscovery, experts are no closer to understanding the secrets of these enigmatic ruins.

The archaeological site is known as Por Bajin (also spelt Por-Bazhyn), meaning ‘clay house’. It is located on an island in the middle of Tere-Khol Lake in Tuva, Siberia, just 20 miles (32 km) from the Mongolian border.  First explored in 1891, the site was not excavated until 1957-1963. However, it was not until 2007-2008 that the first large-scale research was undertaken, carried out by the Por Bajin Cultural Foundation.

What they discovered presented a conundrum – the structure is located in a very remote place on the outskirts of what was the Uighur nomad empire, built with Chinese features, but with no sign of permanent habitation, and abandoned after only a short period of use.

Why was it built? How was it used? And why was it abandoned? These are the questions that have continued to both fascinate and frustrate experts ever since its discovery.

Inside the complex of Por Bajin. Credit: Por Bajin Cultural Foundation

The Construction of Por Bajin

Believed to have been constructed in 757 AD, the ancient complex has outer walls that still rise to 40 feet (12 meters) in height and inner walls of 3-5 feet (1 – 1.5 meters), some still covered with lime plaster painted with horizontal red stripes. A main gate was discovered, opening into two successive courtyards connected by another gate.

The walls enclose an area of about seven acres containing the remains of more than 30 buildings, but with a two-part central structure linked by a covered walkway, which once had a tiled roof and was supported by 36 wooden columns resting on stone bases.

Laser mapping of the site prior to the first major excavation in 2007 helped experts build a 3D model of what the complex might have looked like.

Por-Bajin reconstruction seen from the east. Credit: Por Bajin Cultural Foundation

Only a small number of artifacts were ever recovered from the site – if it had been permanently inhabited one would expect to find a much greater number of items.  There was also no evidence of any kind of heating system, which would have made it impossible to stay there, at 2,300 meters above sea level, in winter conditions.

The main finds include clay tablets of human feet, faded coloured drawings, fragments of burnt wood, roof tiles, an iron dagger, a stone chalice, one silver earring, and iron construction nails. None of the artifacts provide a definitive answer as to why the structure was built, and how it was used.

One of the tiles found at Por Bajin. Credit: Por Bajin Cultural Foundation

The Origins and Purpose of Por Bajin

Since the end of the 19^th century, Por-Bajin has been linked to the Uighur Khagante nomadic empire (744 – 840 AD), composed of nomadic Turkic-speaking people held together by forces of warriors on horseback. The empire spanned Mongolia and southern Siberia, however, the location of Por Bajin was still well away from settlements and trade routes. Why would they build in such a remote location? Could it have been the site of a palace or a memorial for a ruler? The unique layout, more ornate than that of other Uighur fortresses of the period, has led some scholars to suggest that it might have had a ritual role.

Still, there are some other puzzling features. The architecture reflects a distinctive Chinese style, as evidenced by the use of Chinese building materials, such as certain types of roof tiles, and the use of Chinese construction methods. The layout, with its axial planning, dominant central building, and residential quarters is consistent with styles seen in other Buddhist monasteries. But Por-Bajin shows no evidence of religious practice.

Small yards (left) running along Por-Bajin’s walls each had a building in the center. A digital reconstruction (right) based on excavations shows that each building could have functioned as a dwelling, perhaps for monks if the site were a monastery. Credit: Por Bajin Cultural Foundation

Why was it abandoned?

Not only has Por Bajin presented a mystery regarding its purpose, but archaeological evidence suggests it was abandoned after only a short period of use.

No evidence has been found to suggest the complex came under attack from an opposing force. Political changes in the region may offer one possible explanation, although nothing concrete has been presented to support this theory.  According to Dmitriy Subetto, from the Department of Physical Geography RGPU, the structure may have been abandoned prior to completion due to the builders’ lack of familiarity with the permafrost.

For now, Por Bajin remains one of Russia’s enduring mysteries.

Featured image: Aerial view of Lake Tere-Khol and Por-Bajin island. Credit: Por Bajin Cultural Foundation

Sources

Who built this Siberian summer palace… and why? By Derek Lambie. Siberian Times.

Por Bajin: An Enigmatic Site of the Uighurs in Southern Siberia (2011) – Arzhanstseva et al. The European Archaeologist, 35.

Letter from Siberia: Fortress of Solitude by Heinrich Harke. Archaeology magazine, Vol 63 (6).

By April Holloway

– See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/1300-year-old-fortress-structure-siberian-lake-013323#sthash.DBsRi9fY.bXZs5Lcn.dpuf

CAER SIDI

If this is not to you excellent story and gaming material then you aren’t really trying…

5 Mind Blowing Underwater Cities

No doubt we’ve all heard of the legend of Atlantis, the ancient, once great city that was lost when the ocean submerged it.To this day the legendary city has yet to be found (or proven to have ever existed) yet over the years many other underwater cities have been found, each of them as eerie as they are mind blowing.

 

1. Port Royal, Jamaica

Once a notorious hub for pirate activity, prostitutes, booze, and raging all-night parties, Port Royal was once branded ‘the most wicked and sinful city in the world’.

That was so until June 1692 when a massive 7.5 earthquake shook the island of Jamaica, sucking Port Royal into the ocean due to it’s unstable foundations and killing over 2,000 of it’s inhabitants. Was this earthquake a fatal natural accident or was it retribution for all the sins committed within the cavity? For hundreds of years people believed the latter.

In the years since then the infamous city, once one of the largest European cities in the New World, has continued to sink and now it lies forty feet below the ocean. The sunken city is a hive for archeological exploration as amazingly many near-perfect artefacts are still being unveiled from the site.

 

2. The Pyramids of Yonaguni-Jima, Japan

To this day experts still argue over whether the Yonaguni Monument which lies underwater just off the coast of Japan is man made or simply a natural occurrence.

While there is evidence to support the natural theory, looking at the terraced stones and triangular shapes that which make up the pyramid it’s hard to believe such a monument could occur naturally. The pyramid rises a massive 250 feet from the sea floor and is a constant lure for scuba-divers for obvious reasons.

If the structure was manmade, experts suggest it was likely built during the last ice age at roughly 10,000 BCE.

 

3. Dwarka, Gulf of Cambay, India

The ancient city of Lord Krishna was once thought to be merely a myth but ruins discovered in 2000 seem to be breathing life into the old Indian tale.

The story goes that Lord Krishna had a magnificent city which was made up of 70,000 palaces made of gold, silver, and various other precious metals. The city was prosperous however upon Lord Krishna’s death Dwarka supposedly sank into the sea.

The ruins are situated 131 feet beneath the ocean surface in the bay of modern-day Dwarka, one of the seven oldest cities in India. Acoustic studies have shown the ruins to be amazingly geometric, stunning experts.

Many artefacts have been recovered from the site but perhaps none more important than one which was dated to 7500 BCE, supporting the theory that the ruins may well be the ancient Dwarka.

 

4. Lion City of Quiandao Lake, China

Hailed as the most spectacular underwater city in the world, China’s Lion City certainly is a marvel.

Built in Eastern Han Dynasty at roughly 25-200 CE and spanning about 62 football fields in area, today Lion City can be found 85-131 feet beneath the surface of Thousand Island Lake, an area that was intentionally flooded in the 1950s to create a dam.

The sculptures that decorate the city rival the beauty of even Alexandria so it’s little wonder that Lion City is now one of China’s most popular tourist destinations.

 

5. Cleopatra’s Palace, Alexandria, Egypt

Just off the shores of Alexandria lies what is believed to be the palace of Cleopatra, an ancient Egyptian queen. It is believed that the ruins were cast into the sea by an earthquake over 1,500 years ago and lay dormant until recent years.

Along with the royal quarters, archaeologists also believe they have found the temple of Isis alongside them. To date, more than 140 artifacts have been uncovered from the site and experts now believe they have located the tomb of Cleoplatra and an ancient museum within the ruins.

Hopefully the ruins will be opened up to divers and tourists in the years to come, allowing us all to have a closer look at the marvel that is Cleopatra’s palace.

THE OLD CITIES OF CAPPADOCIA

I’m familiar with these places. As a matter of fact they show up in my Other World novels.

Nevertheless they are as fascinating to me now and when I first learned of them.

In addition to the Real World significance of these domains this also possesses very under-utilized story and gaming possibilities. And God, yes, I’d love to vad these places.

 

This Guy Knocked Down A Wall In His House. He Never Expected This To Behind It. WOAH!

Province of Turkey was doing a little home remodeling. He decided to knock down a wall of his home for an expansion. He discovered a hidden room behind the wall with a slender hallway carved out of of the stone below his home. The hallway lead to a cave-like room which lead to more hallways and cave-like rooms. Before he knew it he had stumbled onto an entire city underground and attached to his home. The city was completely empty and abandoned but it had every amenity you would need to sustain a society. What he had stumbled on by accident was Derinkuyu and The underground cities of Cappadocia.

These tunnels are believed to be hand dug around the 15th and 12th century BCE. They sheltered the people and their food from the extreme climates above. They also served as protection from an enemy attack.

Here is A small drawing of what these underground cities look like. The ground is primarily made of ash and volcanic material making it easy to excavate and still very durable. No one is sure who first occupied the underground city however it is certain that many groups have occupied it over the centuries.

With up to 11 floors at points accessible to the public, the city reaches depths of over 280 feet below the surface. 11 floors have been excavated and deemed safe for tourism however it is speculated that there are over 18 floors below that have yet to be discovered.

The miles upon miles of tunnels are blackened from centuries of torches traveling through them. The city connects to other cities in the area spanning miles which would be able to sustain tens of thousands of people at one time.

The underground tunnels lead to giant rooms that housed schools, wine cellars, oil press rooms, churches, gathering halls, shops, tombs, arsenals, livestock corrals, escape routes and water wells separated from the surface water. 

There are over 100 entrances to the underground cities but each and every one of them are hidden behind bushes or walls, even courtyards had entrances that were hidden but big enough to move livestock in and out of.

The entrances and other important rooms were guarded with giant stone doors. They were hand carved and weigh up to 1,00 pounds. Some are over 5 feet in diameter.

Underground river systems were used as drinking sources in order to avoid being poisoned by surface water susceptible to enemies above ground.

 How amazing is this place? I’m astounded that it was completely built by hand.

The size of the rooms is incredible. Right now about 10% of the underground city is open to the public but it was only discovered in 1963 so experts still have a lot to excavate and document.

This is one of the well shafts. They built it so that the vent shaft did not reach the surface. This would prevent any poisoning from enemies on the surface.

This is a vertical staircase leading to a floor below. These lead to most levels and can be very dangerous. 

 

 

The tunnels were dug very narrow to force people to walk through them single file. This would give the people living in the underground cities an advantage over their enemies. 

The room above is a wine cellar and cold food storage. The amount of detail and time that went into each room is impressive to say the least. To think that this may still be sitting undiscovered if it weren’t for one man who decided to remodel his home. He knocked down one wall and opened a door to another society completely hidden underground. A society hidden for thousands of years only to revealed in 1963.