Category: Medieval

Rare Viking grave unearthed in Oslo

Medieval

A richly furnished Viking grave has been unearthed in western Oslo, the first Viking-era grave replete with artifacts to be archaeologically excavated in the Norwegian capital.

It was discovered on private property on a hill overlooking the Holmendammen pond. Plans to build a new home triggered an excavation of the site by the Oslo Municipality Cultural Heritage Management Office who uncovered the grave under a thin layer of topsoil.

The burial contained cremated human remains and a panoply of grave goods including fragments of a soapstone vessel, a penannular brooch, a sickle, two knives, horse tack that may have been a bridle and a bell and a shield boss. The metal boss would have been in the center of a wooden shield when it was first buried, but now the wood has all rotted away leaving only the shield boss.

The remains have not yet been radiocarbon dated, but the penannular brooch is of a type that were produced between 850 A.D. and the 11th century, mapping rather neatly with the Viking Age (800-1066 A.D.). The brooch is large of a type that was typically used to fasten men’s capes. The shield boss also points to the deceased having been an adult man.

[University of Oslo archaeologist Zanette Tsigaridas] Glørstad says this is the first artefact-rich Viking grave in Oslo that has been excavated by archaeologists. But many objects that can be linked to Viking graves have been found by, among others, construction workers in Oslo over the years.

Glørstad says that they are aware of the discovery of remains from around 60 graves from the Viking Age in Oslo. Most were found around the turn of the century in 1900 when the town expanded to St.Hanshaugen, Grünerløkka, Bjølsen, Tåsen and Sinsen.

These involve many individual items that can perhaps be connected to a grave, and in some cases they are found in a pile or together with burnt bones, says Glørstad.

The artifacts recovered from the grave are heavily corroded and are currently undergoing treatment and analysis in the conservation lab of the University of Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History. The cremated human remains are also being studied, but they were burned thoroughly so no DNA will be able to be extracted from the charred bone fragments.

Judge hits Herefordshire Viking hoard looters where it hurts

Looting, Medieval, Treasures

George Powell and Layton Davies, the metal detecting looters who stole the Herefordshire Viking hoard, will have to pay through the nose for their greed. Convicted of theft and concealment in 2019, Powell and Davies were sentenced to long prison terms (10 years and 8.5 years respectively). Now a judge has ordered them to cough up more than £600,000 apiece within three months or an additional five years will be added to their sentences.

The hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins, jewelry and silver ingots, buried in the late 9th century, was discovered in 2015 in a field in Eye, near Leominster, Herefordshire, on private property which Powell and Davies did not have permission to scan. They hid the find and made arrangements to sell this archaeological treasure on the black market. By the time authorities became aware of it (thanks to these clowns posting a picture on a metal detecting website of the hoard in situ), most of the coins and all but one ingot were scattered to the four winds. Only 29 of the estimated 300 coins were recovered, a tragic loss considering that the few remaining coins contain extremely rare “Two-Emperor” pennies commemorating an alliance between Alfred the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia.

Coin dealer Simon Wicks who fenced some of their loot was also convicted of concealment and sentenced to five years in jail. Judge Nicholas Cartwright believes the that Powell and Davies are still holding out on the authorities, that they are still hiding the 270 missing coins or that they at least know where they are. That’s why he’s hitting them in the only place they care about: their wallets.

When the men were sentenced, the judge said that if they had obtained the correct permission they would have gone on to receive up to half the £3m value of the hoard between them.

He said he rejected their accounts that the items were with other people and an auction house in Austria and said the men deliberately stole items.

“They acted together dishonestly. They jointly stole the items and jointly intended to split and sell the bracelet,” Judge Cartwright said.

The 29 coins, one silver ingot, a gold arm bangle with a clasp in the shape of a beast head, a rock crystal sphere encased in an ornately decorated openwork gold frame-like cage believed to be of Frankish manufacture and a gold octagonal ring with black niello inlay are what remains of the hoard at this time. The group is currently on display at Hereford’s Museum Resource and Learning Centre and thanks to a successful fundraising campaign, it will stay in Herefordshire. Funds have been allocated to redevelop the Hereford Museum and Art Gallery (HMAG) into a state-of-the-art cultural destination and the Viking hoard will be its centerpiece.

Medieval gold lynxes to go on display

Medieval

A pair of medieval gold earrings shaped like lynxes with minutely intricate decoration are going on display for the first time since they were discovered near the medieval Armenian city of Ani in eastern Turkey.

Ani was founded in the 5th century on a hill overlooking the Akhurian River, the modern border between Turkey and Armenia, at the intersection of several important trade routes on the Silk Road. It prospered and grew over the centuries, reaching its peak in the 11th century as the capital of the Bagratid Armenian kingdom with a population of 100,000 inside the citadel walls. The walls could not ultimately defend it from the onslaught of the Mongols in 1236. They sacked the city, leaving it much reduced in population, and an earthquake in 1319 did even more damage to Ani’s famed churches, monasteries and palaces. Shifting trade routes lessened Ani’s regional prominence, and by the end of the 17th century it had become a ghost town.

The gold lynx earrings were discovered in the village of Subatan, less than 10 miles away from Ani on the Silk Road route that traverses the ruins of the citadel. They weigh 22 grams and are decorated with star, teardrop and crescent shapes applied in granulation technique. They are exquisite examples of medieval Armenian art. The museum acquired the earrings in 1994, but they have been kept in protective storage.

Yavuz Çetin, director of Kars Archaeology and Ethnography Museum, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that Kars has hosted many civilizations throughout history as it is located on the border of countries and is on the historical Silk Road’s route. […]

Çetin noted that people have benefited from animals throughout history and attributed physical or characteristic meanings to them.

“The lynx from the feline family is one of these animals. People were influenced by the ferocity and power of this animal and used it in artistic elements,” he said. “The existence of the lynx is also known in our Kars region.”

They will be exhibited next year at the Kars Archaeology and Ethnography Museum.

Tower of Pisa leaning even less

Medieval, Modern(ish)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, whose shoddy foundations have granted it immortal fame, has not only stopped tilting further; it is gradually untilting itself. An international committee established to monitor the listing landmark’s stability has found that 21 years after being pulled back from the brink, the tower is leaning even less. It has lost 4 cm (1.57 inches) of its tilt and moves less than expected.

Nunziante Squeglia, a professor of geotechnics at the University of Pisa who cooperates with the monitoring group, said that the tilt has decreased thanks to stabilization work, along with “oscillations now varying at the average of 1/2 millimeter a year, although what counts the most is the stability of the bell tower, which is better than expected”.

Construction of the bell tower of the Duomo of Pisa began in 1173 in an area where the soft, soggy subsoil spelled disaster from the very first. Crews had only reached the third story when the lean became pronounced. Work was interrupted by war in 1178 and when it resumed in 1272, the soil had stabilized somewhat. Engineers added four more floors and the belfry, adjusting the proportions to compensate for the lean by building one side of the floors taller than the other side.

The lean and subsidence continued undeterred by all attempts to correct them for eight centuries. The tower’s lean increased steadily by an estimated millimeter a year, which adds up when you’re measuring the years by the hundreds. On January 7th 1990, spurred by the tragic and deadly collapse of the 10th century Civic Tower in Pavia the year before, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public. At this point it was leaning at a 5.5 degree angle and it was deemed at imminent risk of collapse. Anyone living in apartment buildings potentially in the path of a fall was evacuated and the tower was wrapped in a steel girdle, cabled and anchored to the ground. While it was being kept stable by wires and lead counterweights, massive quantities of soil were being removed from under the high side of the tower.

After 10 years work and 70 metric tons of soil removed, the tower’s lean was reduced to 3.99% degrees and it was 19 inches straighter, a position it had last seen in 1838. In 2001, the newly stabilized, slightly-less-leaning but much-less-fatal Tower of Pisa reopened to the public. It has been monitored regularly since then and is clearly passing with flying colors.

Canon, cavalier found in Notre-Dame lead sarcophagi

Medieval, Modern(ish)

The two sarcophagi discovered early this year in an excavation at the intersection of nave and transept of Notre-Dame de Paris are beginning to reveal their histories, and one of them has named its owner. The lead coffin has a bronze plaque identifying the deceased as Antoine de la Porte, a canon of Notre Dame Cathedral who died in 1710. The other lead coffin, anthropoid in shape and found in a deeper archaeological layer, is certainly older, but its exact date and the identity of its occupant are still unknown.

Burials in the cathedral took place throughout the medieval and modern periods, with the prime location near the altar reserved for the most prominent individuals. Lead coffins were luxury goods as well, affordable only to the elite. These two examples are very different. One is anthropoid (shaped like the human body), one square. They have different methods of construction, different alloys and they were found in different archaeological layers so are different ages.

The coffins were examined at the Forensic Institute of Toulouse University Hospital using the latest and greatest medical imaging technology. For a week this past November, the sarcophagi were studied with microscopes, probes, CT scanners and X-rays. Lead is usually a good preserver of remains, but in this case both sarcophagi were damaged. Some organic material has nevertheless survived in the coffins, including bones, textile remains, beard and head hair and plant remains. The team has taken samples of the remains inside the coffins and will examine them to determine, if possible, the geographical origin, diet, illnesses, cause, date and age of death of the deceased.

We know Antoine de la Porte’s age and date of death with exactness, thanks to the epitaph on his coffin. He died December 24th when he was 83 years old. De La Porte was a wealthy and influential prelate who contributed an extraordinarily large sum to build a new altar in fulfillment of the Vow of Louis XIII, a pledge issued by the king in 1638 consecrating himself and France to the Virgin Mary in gratitude for the birth of his son and heir. The pertinent text of the Vow:

[W]e have declared and we declare that, taking the very holy and glorious Virgin Mary as special protectress of our kingdom, we particularly consecrate to her our own Self, the State, our Crown and our subjects, entreating her to inspire in us a holy conduct and to so diligently defend this kingdom against the endeavors of all its enemies that, whether it suffers the plague of war or enjoys the sweetness of the peace we implore from God from the depth of our heart, it may never depart from the path of grace leading to the path to glory. And so that posterity does not fail to follow our will in the matter, as a monument and immortal sign of the present consecration that we are making, we shall build anew the great altar of the Cathedral of Paris with an image of the Virgin holding in her arms her precious Son descended from the Cross and representing us at the foot of the Son and the Mother as offering to them our crown and our scepter.

The king never did get around to building that new altar in his lifetime. Instead, said son and heir, King Louis XIV undertook to fulfill his father’s vow and commissioned construction of an elaborate new high altar in December 1699. Two years later, the War of Spanish Succession began. From 1701 to 1714, all the money Louis XIV could scrape up was poured into his military adventures. Realizing his original plan for Notre-Dame was now unaffordable, he scaled it down. Even the more modest project was still out of his financial reach, so in 1708 the good Canon Antoine de la Porte made an enormous donation of 10,000 livres that jump-started construction. The Pietà statue mentioned in the vow was completed in 1723; the one of Louis XIII kneeling was completed in 1715. Louis XIV added one of himself kneeling with his hand on his heart on the other side. The full reconstruction of the altar was completed in 1725.

The anthropoid lead coffin was not conveniently labelled for posterity, alas. The skeletal remains indicate the deceased was a man between 24 and 40 years old. His pelvic bone and upper legs show evidence that he rode horses from a very young age. Researchers have dubbed him “the cavalier” because of this. He suffered some kind of chronic disease that had destroyed almost all of his teeth by the time he died. Long before that when he was just an infant, his skull was deformed by being bound with a headband. (Deliberate cranial modification is widespread over every human population continent going back tens of thousands of years, including among the aristocracy of France and Italy in the High Middle Ages, see this portrait of a princess by Pisanello now in the Louvre, for example.) Interestingly, the top of his skull was sawed off, evidence that he was embalmed, an extremely rare practice in the Middle Ages.

The coffin also contains the remains of a shroud and many leaves and flowers at head-height, likely from a crown of flowers. There were leaves found at abdomen level, as well. Another unique element of this burial is that the lead sarcophagus was not just anthropoid, but specifically molded to fit around the body of the deceased. These features strongly suggest he was someone of aristocratic status.