The History Blog

The remains of a settlement with a domestic space carved out of built into the bedrock has been discovered near the Meria marina in Cap Corse, Corsica. The settlement dates to the 4th century A.D., and is likely connected to a mooring structure from the same period found below the settlement last year.

The structure was unearthed in a preventative excavation prior to planned construction of a house on the prime location less than 100 meters (328 feet) from the shore of the beautiful blue Bay of Meria on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The peninsula is archaeologically significant, so an excavation before construction was required by law.

The masonry building has two parts and is built into the bedrock. The exposed schist rock was carved deliberately to accommodate the foundations of the new building. The builders then used the removed schist to make said foundations, carefully cutting it into square blocks. The blocks were then laid in an alternating stretcher (lengthwise blocks) and header (perpendicular blocks) pattern within the masonry wall.

The solid bedrock was integrated into the building too, as the interior facing of the masonry walls, extending past the edges of the blocks. Large monoliths of schist were used to partition the rooms, kept in place with stone wedges and wooden posts.

Several refuse pits located in the corners of the building’s various rooms contained mostly ceramic fragments related to cooking practices, glassware, iron tools, and even a grinding stone (catillus) . All these elements point to the domestic sphere and support the functional interpretation of this building as a dwelling. Finally, several postholes with stone supports are scattered throughout the building and could be the negatives for wooden supports for a tiled roof, as suggested by the presence of numerous tegulae ( roof tiles) in the abandonment layers.

Ceramic fragments from Late Antiquity found at the dwelling and from last year’s excavation of the ancient pier are rare on the Corsican archaeological record. They are imports from the Mediterranean trade networks that otherwise seemed to miss the island, so the evidence suggests that Meria had a unique position as a commercial outpost from the Roman period to the early Middle Ages. Copious metal, glass and lithic materials attest to a comparatively high level of artisanal production accessible for personal use. An earlier discovery of a white marble altar table support with an inscription dedicated to the emperor Claudius also supports the hypothesis that Meria had a larger settlement with regular interactions with the wider Roman world in Mediterranean.

A new multidisciplinary study of a rare surviving life-sized Etruscan bronze statue has found that the black patina was intentionally created in antiquity, not the result of natural aging or a later coating. Very little is known about Etruscan art foundry methods, so this discovery advances our understanding of how ancient large bronze statues were produced.

Discovered in 1567, the hollow-cast bronze statue is now in Florence’s National Museum of Archaeology. It is known as the Arringatore (Orator) or the portrait of Aule Metli, an Etruscan senator of the Roman Republic in the late 2nd or early 1st century. He is depicted wearing a toga, calcei senatorii shoes and his right arm raised in an oratory gesture. An Etruscan language inscription on the toga names Aule Metli as the donor of this votive sculpture.

Researchers analyzed the metal composition, stratified mineral and organic material, microfragments and the manufacturing processes of the sculpture. They utilized X-ray diffraction and polarized light microscopy to examine the samples and investigate how the bronze was cast and assembled.

Tests identified a dark copper oxide called tenorite lying above a red layer of another copper oxide, cuprite. The structure appeared across several preserved areas, not merely a single stain.

The arrangement points to heating. Copper alloys typically form the reddish layer first, while the darker mineral develops under more strongly oxidizing conditions. The authors described it as “a blackish intentional patina” and said the paired layers were unlikely to form through burial alone. […]

The study also brings new details to the figure’s construction. X-ray images indicate the bronze was assembled from eight separately cast sections. Most of its hollow walls were only a few millimeters thick, evidence of considerable skill in making such a large figure.

The study has been published in the journal Heritage and can be read here in its entirety.

A pair of polyhedral gold earrings and a 3rd century Roman coin have been discovered in a child’s grave in Stara Zagora, central Bulgaria.

The child’s grave is oriented with the head pointing west and the feet east. The pair of gold earrings and one coin were the only grave goods. The coin in an Antoninian of Emperor Aurelian, minted in Serdica in 274-275 A.D. The grave dates to this time.

The child’s identity and circumstances of death remain unknown. The presence of gold jewelry suggests that valuable personal possessions accompanied the burial, although it is not enough to establish the family’s social standing.

The coin raises another interesting possibility. The coin may also have held a meaning beyond its monetary value. In ancient Greek and Roman funerary traditions, coins were sometimes placed with the deceased as payment to Charon, the mythical ferryman who carried souls to the underworld. Although its purpose in this particular burial remains unknown, the coin may reflect beliefs surrounding death and the journey into the afterlife.

Evidence of human settlements in the Stara Zagora area go back 8,000 years, but the first town was founded by Philip II of Macedon in the 5th-4th century B.C. The necropolis where the child’s grave was found was in use from the late 2nd through the 5th centuries. It contains 135 burials of several different types of graves: burial pits with cremated remains, covered with tegulae (roof tiles), covered with bricks, covered with stone slabs, uncovered and more. Most of them are inhumation burials.

An underwater excavation at Kekova island on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey has uncovered amphorae between 4,400 to 4,700 years old, dating back to the Early Bronze Age. Maritime archaeologists believe this is the surviving cargo of the world’s oldest shipwreck.

The wooden ship has not survived in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, but 30 of the large storage containers that held its cargo have. Some of them still contain traces of what was inside of them. The pattern of spread indicates the ship was about 10 meters (33 feet) long. Three stone anchors were also found.

Analysis of the clay in the amphorae revealed that they were manufactured in the Jordan Valley. Comparable examples have been found in Egypt, Troy and Crete, artifacts of the impressive range of the trade networks in the eastern Mediterranean.

One of the amphorae is notable for its design. The vessel has nine markings and two holes on its body. Archaeologists hypothesize that it may have been used to make cheese or churn butter. If that’s true, it suggests sailors may have made food on board ship, not just transported the finished consumer goods.

Dr Karin Sowada, an archaeologist from Macquarie University, Australia, examined the amphorae after they were recovered. Some were intact and she was surprised to see they still contained a viscous, glossy residue.

“I looked inside and nearly fainted. I could not believe how much [residue] was visible. It wasn’t just like spots…. a lot of this material was still remaining,” she said.

The team is now working to find out exactly what was being carried in the amphorae.

“It could be olive oil, it could be wine, it could be tree resins,” Sowada said.

“It’s possible that [the residue] could actually be the result of reuse of the jars. I mean, these jars are huge – they’re not things that you just ship away and then never see again. People would have emptied these jars on arrival and potentially used them for many, many, many years.”

The artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck site are now being studies and conserved. They will eventually be put on display at the new Mediterranean Underwater Archaeology Museum in Antalya which is scheduled to open to the public over the next few months.