The History Blog

Archaeologists excavating a tract of land outside what is now Le Mans, France, but was once Vindunum, Gaul, in preparation for future construction have discovered a large, rich temple complex dating from the 1st to the 3rd century A.D. Most of the stone structure is long gone, doubtless recycled into a couple thousand years worth of local buildings, but what remains indicates a large site which would have been able to accommodate hundreds, if not thousands, of worshipers.

The shape of the buildings were first spotted from aerial views. Archaeologists followed the shapes with some exploratory digs on the ground. Once they realized there weren’t many in the way of walls to harm, they sent in mechanical diggers to peel off the wheat fields from the sanctuary foundations.

At the entrance to the site, there once stood a large E-shaped building, probably for welcoming the pilgrims, selling religious objects and housing the temple guardians. One wide path littered with iron slag (Vindunum was a major metalworking centre), leads a few hundred metres south to the foundations of a circular fanum (temple) about 12 metres in diameter. That round shape was rare in Gallo-Roman times and there are only a few such examples in France.

In fact, three temples were erected successively during the second and third centuries. Possibly they had to be rebuilt because of the instability of the ground. A pergola and a flight of steps would have led to the temple, which had stone walls around seven metres high covered by a tiled roof. Inside, the cella (central room) housed the statue of the god.

Another fanum stood at the west, the oldest in the sanctuary, dating to the first century. It was square, 15 metres wide and apparently in the Celtic temple tradition. This one was originally built in wood and stone added later, together with a cella surrounded by a gallery for circumambulation and a wall separating the sacred space from the profane. Fragments of coloured plaster show that the walls were once panted. The temple was surrounded by octagonal or square-shaped secondary “chapels”.

This Celtic fanum is where archaeologists found the most artifacts. Most likely offerings made to the deities, the finds include Gallic, Celtic and Roman silver coins, broaches, rings, keys, pottery, weapons and heavy work tools like sledgehammers and hammers. Metal workers and soldiers would have had good reason to offer valuable implements of their trade to the gods, given how dangerous their jobs were.

Archaeologists didn’t find any offerings in the circular temple, but they did find something completely unexpected: graves. Romans didn’t bury the dead on temple grounds. They didn’t even bury them inside the city walls. Dead bodies were not considered pure, and temples had to be.

Vindunum was a major Gallo-Roman city in the first few centuries A.D. It had a large bath complex — demolished in the third century and the stone used to build the walls encircling the city — and an amphitheater built about the same time as the walls. (Fun fact: it’s also where Henry II of England was born. The well-preserved medieval old town is known as Cité Plantagenêt.)

Here’s some more information on the discovery of King Hekatomnus’ tomb in Milas, Turkey. Police searched a home the looters were using and found 2 tunnels leading to the tomb. Inside the tomb they found not only a large and elaborately carved sarcophagus, but also frescoes and possibly more easily portable treasures that they promptly sold on the black market.

A court has arrested and charged five of 10 people detained in the raid, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Anatolia, which was allowed to enter the tomb, said the suspects had dug two tunnels — 6 and 8 yards long — from the house and an adjacent barn, leading to the tomb that is buried about 10 yards deep.

They used sophisticated equipment to drill through the thick marble walls of the tomb and were working to remove the coffin from the underground chamber.

So I gather then that the tomb is a marble structure, not just a grave. Maybe it was an inspiration for his son Mausolos’ famous excess.

Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay noted that these looters weren’t some fly-by-night amateurs with shovels. They had funding and access to specialized equipment. Turkey intends to follow the money, investigating any potential international links. Gunay has also ordered further digs on the site and in nearby areas.

In 2006, a team from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust found a crate of ‘Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky’ under the floorboards of Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds on Ross Island, Antarctica. The whiskey was buried in solid ice along with 4 crates of brandy. Shackleton had brought the liquor with him on his 1907 Nimrod expedition and left it behind when he went home in 1909.

Whiskey connoisseurs got excited because the original recipe for this particular brew is lost, and given the optimal preservation conditions of Antarctic freeze, this could be the resurrection of a historical liquor. Gratification had to be delayed, however. The crate was frozen solid, embedded in the ice. It wasn’t until just a few months ago that the ice melted just enough for the crate of whiskey, still frozen solid, to be taken out. It was sent to the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, for very gradual defrosting and very ginger analysis.

It took them a month to fully thaw the crate, and today they finally opened the lid. (There are some fantastic pictures and details about the long thaw on Canterbury Museum’s The Great Whisky Crate Thaw website.)

Today in a painstakingly slow and careful manoeuvre, the crate was opened to reveal not 12 but 11 bottles of Scotch whisky, carefully wrapped in paper and straw to protect them from the rigours of a rough trip to the Southern Ocean in 1907.

One of the 11 bottles was not as full as the other 10 and it was suspected the twelfth bottle might have been drunk by a member of Shackleton’s crew of the Nimrod who could not resist the temptation.

The whisky is unlikely ever to be tasted and once samples have been extracted and sent to the Scottish distillery which took over the Mackinlay’s distillery many years ago, they will go back to their original home under the floor of Shackleton’s hut in Cape Royds on Ross Island near McMurdo Sound.

Whiskey expert Michael Milne was a witness to the opening. He notes that there was not much information on the label, so we don’t know if it’s a single or blended malt. Hopefully when Whyte and Mackay, the company that today owns the Mackinlay brand, get their clammy hands on the samples, they’ll be able to identify not just the basics like that but also recreate the full recipe.

Until then, nobody gets to take a sip, I’m afraid.

The annual extravaganza of RM Auctions’ Sports & Classics of Monterey classic car auction always presents a droolworthy catalogue of beautiful and dramatic cars, but this year they’ve outdone themselves.

Meet my next Christmas present (the perfect companion to that Bugatti Royale you guys are getting me for my birthday), the 1949 Delahaye 175 S Saoutchik Roadster, custom built by industrial engineer Emile Delahaye and coachwork artist extraordinare Jacques Saoutchik for car show enthusiast Sir John Gaul.

Here are some details for those of you who might know what they mean:

After the war, Delahaye introduced a brand-new design, the 175, a four-and-a-half liter six-cylinder design based on a new block with a seven-bearing crank. Output ranged from 140 bhp to 185 bhp for the sport models. It was Delahayes first left-drive chassis and was planned to compete with the Lago Record. The chassis was also state-of-the-art, featuring a Dubonnet front suspension and a De Dion rear axle with drive-shafts passing through the side rails of the frames. The brakes were hydraulic, with twin master cylinders and finned alloy drums. The gearbox was an electromechanically actuated unit by Cotal.
A longer wheelbase 180 model was offered, and although the more popular of the two Delahayes offered, it found few buyers in Europe that could afford such extravagance at this time. Production ceased in 1951 after just 150 units – a mere 51 were of the 175 S version.

Jacques Saoutchik is the reason it looks so gorgeous with those dramatic swooping lines, the fully skirted fenders that apparently make it look like it’s floating when it’s in motion, and that gorgeous graphic interior with the Lucite steering wheel. There are no other Delayhayes like this one. Saoutchik’s work was too expensive to sustain in the lean postwar years, even with the revival of the wealthy car enthusiast concours circuit. The firm ended up closing up shop in 1955, just 6 years after they made the beautiful Delahaye of all time.

Sir John Gaul showed it with much success for 5 years before selling it to British actress Diana Dors, aka ‘The British Marilyn’. Turquoise was apparently her signature color. She kept it for a couple of decades, then the car went through some tough times. Parts were replaced that shouldn’t have been replaced.

It wasn’t until 2007 that this precious humpty dumpty was put back together again with the original parts, and now it’s for sale. Estimated price: just $4,000,000 to $6,000,000. That’s a bargain compared to the Turner you all disappointed me deeply by not buying for me.

If you like looking at purty vehicles, the whole catalogue is a must-browse. It’s one gem after another. My second favorite is the 1903 Ford Model A Rear Entry Tonneau (estimate $600,000 – $800,000). This is the oldest model of Ford surviving, and this particular car has had, count ‘em, FIVE owners since 1903.

Inadvertantly, of course. Authorities in Milas, near Bodrum, Turkey (once known as Halicarnassus of Caria), spent 7 months investigating a gang of looters, eventually following them to an illegal dig. The area was large so it wasn’t until after police arrested the looters that they found out the wretches had made an enormous find: the 4th century B.C. tomb of King Hekataios of Caria, father of King Mausolos of Caria.

It was for King Mausolos that a tomb was built which was so large and lavish that it would become known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In fact, it was so wondrous that they named that whole category of grandiose tombs after Mausolos.

His father King Hekataois, also known as Hekatomnus, was a satrap of the Persian empire, but his success on the battlefield carved out an autonomous kindgom in Caria, a kingdom ruled by his descendants for 50 years, until Alexander swept through on his way to conquering the world.

So far what’s been found is a large tombstone that dates to 390 B.C., but who knows what else is on the site. There is some damage on the stone already, some caused by humans trying to dig it up in God knows what atrocious way, some by time.

“Even with its damaged parts the tomb stone is one of the most important archeological discoveries of all times. It has a very rare and precious workmanship.”

“The tomb stone could be as precious as Great Alexander’s, which is exhibited at the Istanbul Archeology Museum,” said [Undersecretariat of Culture and Tourism Ministry Özgür] Özarslan, adding that the relic first had to be saved. “The Ministry of Culture and Tourism will deal with that issue,” he said.

“The tomb stone has a length of 2.75 meters and a width of 1.85 meters,” said Culture and Tourism Ministry Properties and Museums Managing Director Murat Süslü.

The Domesday Book, the great property survey of England done at behest of William the Conqueror in 1086, records that 166 homes, over 10% of the existing town, were destroyed in the construction of Lincoln Castle. Until now, however, no material remains of the mini-ethnic cleansing have been found.

Archaeologists excavating on the castle grounds in preparation for the construction of a new Heritage Skills Center have uncovered the first remains of Saxon homes, including a fireplace, pottery and the marks of now-decayed structural timbers.

Cecily Spall, from Field Archaeology Specialists (FAS), said the discoveries, made in the north lawn area, give a glimpse of a revolution in the country.

“The Saxons would not have been able to do anything about this. The Norman Conquest remodelled Anglo Saxon England.

“New landlords were appointed and they laid waste to houses and they reassigned the ownership of property and land rights.”

Lincoln was a walled town with 1164 homes surrounding an old Roman fortress. In the volatile period after William’s victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he built several castles at strategic points in the country to consolidate his control. Lincoln was one of his first. It was at the crossroads of major traveling routes so in 1068 William knocked down the Roman keep, destroyed 166 homes in the southwest corner of the upper town, within the fortification walls, and built him a castle.

I’m not sure how they know the inhabitants were Saxon, though. Lincoln had a large Viking population, so when they say Saxon, I’m wondering if that’s just a convention (Normans v. Saxons forever) or if there’s something specific in the remains that indicate Saxon ethnicity.

Archaeologists from the University of Torino and the ministry for Archaeology of Southern Etruria excavating the Etruscan necropolis of Tarquinia have uncovered a large, possibly royal tomb from the 7th century B.C. Found in a central area of the city of tombs (an area known to have been frequented by Etruscan royalty), the tomb has fragments of paint on the wall.

Tests on the paint indicate it was made using an ancient Greek technique invented between the mid-8th and 7th centuries B.C. The tempera-like process is the oldest known paint making technique described in historical records. If the date on the tomb is confirmed, the band of red around the entranceway of the Tarquinia tomb will be the oldest Etruscan funerary painting ever found, beating the previous record-holder by several decades.

That’s not the only significant discovery. The tomb’s design and decoration use techniques from all over the Mediterranean.

The first stage of the excavation revealed a wide, imposing, open-air staircase leading down to the crypt’s entrance. After entering the tomb, archaeologists discovered the walls were covered in a form of gypsum plaster, using techniques common in the ancient civilisations of modern-day Cyprus, Egypt and Syria. This is the first example of this technique found in the central Italian region of Etruria and is believed to have been created by specialists from the eastern Mediterranean area. This theory is further backed up by the design of the crypt itself, which appears to be modelled on a style common in Cyprus, particularly in the ancient city-state of Salamis. The fact a royal tomb was created by a team of foreign architects and craftsmen is strong evidence of a solid network of ties and trade with other cultures, archaeologists said.

Etruscans are known to have traded extensively with the Greeks, but to see evidence of cultural influences from so many different places so early is a new puzzle piece in the little we know of the Etruscan civilization. Necropoli of tombs carved into the volcanic rock of central Italy are the source of most of what we have been able to learn about them, but even there we find a mystery at every turn.

There’s a black image outlined in red above the door and archaeologists have no idea what it means. It may be an animal representing the underworld, it may mean something else entirely.

Ongoing excavations of the site of The Theater, the 16th century London playhouse where Shakespeare first performed as an actor with The Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of players and later debuted some of his most famous plays, have revealed an intemperate number of drinking vessels. Authorities at the time described The Theater as a “school for all wickedness and vice” so it’s not surprisingly that audiences were well lubricated. There was even a riot on the premises that required the police investigation in 1580.

Archaeologists from the Museum of London also found the remains of the porcelain piggy banks (not actually shaped like piggies) which held the theater’s earnings until they were pooled together for division of the spoils among the company.

The broken, ceramic money boxes, which had to be smashed to give up their contents, have been traced to the playhouse’s accounts office. The earnings were the subject of dozens of lawsuits involving the actor and manager, James Burbage, and The Theatre’s other co-owner, John Brayne. [...]

Other playhouses were regarded by London authorities as “an offence to the godly” and a “hindrance to the Gospel”. The playhouses were well known for “unchaste matters, lascivious devices and other lewd and ungodly practices”. Theatre-goers were seen as “the worst sort” of “evil and disordered people” who skipped work “to mis-spend their time”.

Excavations at New Inn Yard, Shoreditch, are building up that picture. Archaeologists have unearthed scores of fragments of mid- to late 16th century wine and ale flagons and mugs – found in what was probably the playhouse’s bar area. Disorderly behaviour, doubtless often partly fuelled by alcohol – was one of the reasons the authorities disliked the establishment.

The rabble liked the establishment just fine, obviously, and no wonder. Historians believe The Theatre was where Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet premiered, and if not the first stage to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice and Love’s Labour’s Lost, it was among the first.

Interestingly, The Theater’s drunken audience may have in part been owing to the site’s previous use as a monastery. The remains of St John the Baptist Priory, a large and prosperous monastery founded in the 12th century then shut down during Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries in 1539, have been found along with the The Theater remains. Museum of London archaeologists suspect Burbage actually used the alehouse, re-purposing it as a tap house attached to the theater. Later imitators like The Globe and The Rose had in-house pubs, and we know the alehouse was still being used as such after the monastery was shut down, so it makes sense that The Theater might have taken advantage of the sweet location to start a trend.

The only remains of the theater’s structure that have been found thus far are an inner wall, a fragment of the outer wall, and the compacted gravel courtyard which is where the general audiences would have stood. The wooden superstructure never had a chance to survive intact. Burbage’s sons dismantled it in 1598 (without the property owner’s knowledge) and used the wood to the build The Globe theater where Shakespeare’s players moved. That ill-gotten timber burned down with the first Globe 14 years after its illicit recycling.

In November of 1943, the Berlin Tell Halaf Museum was hit with an incendiary bomb and went up in flames, all the artifacts made out of wood or gypsum were completely destroyed. Its monumental basalt statues and stele withstood the fire, but were shattered into thousands of pieces when firemen blasted the burning building with cold water.

Tell Halaf is a palace from the 3,000 year-old Aramaen civilization found in 1899 by German archaeologist and banking scion Max von Oppenheim in what is now northern Syria. Over the next 30 years (interrupted by a failed diplomatic career and a World War) and 2 excavation projects, Oppenheim scooped up all the artifacts he could ship to Berlin, eventually opening a museum dedicated to the finds.

After the firebombing, it was Oppenheim who persuaded Walter Andrae, the director of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Pergamon Museum, to salvage the 27,000 fragments that were all that remained of the basalt monuments. In August of 1944, they were able to recover 9 truckloads of basalt fragments and store them in the basement of the Pergamon Museum. Consider the wartime deprivations of 1944 Berlin and Oppenheim’s known Jewish heritage, it’s pretty amazing those fragments were preserved.

They remained collecting dust in the Pergamon basement until after the reunification of Germany. A 1993 survey of the rubble raised the first hopes that perhaps some of the larger fragments could be reassembled into a few of the sculptures. The restoration project, funded in part by several Oppenheim charities, didn’t start until 2001 but the near decade of hard work has paid off far more than anyone expected. A full 60 artifacts have been pieced together from 25,000 of the fragments. (The remaining 2000 couldn’t be fitted back in.)

“We didn’t know how far we’d get because we didn’t know how much of the original material was recovered from the destroyed museum,” added Stefan Geismeier, the project’s chief restorer.

The team considered using computers to sort out their giant puzzle, but costs were too great, results uncertain, and they needed to show sponsors quickly that they could actually put things back together again.

“At first we thought we’d just reconstruct the outer shells and fill out the inner parts with cement. But after a couple of years we’d developed such a feeling for the basalt structure that we could also refit the inner parts so that most of the artifacts are pretty much complete,” said Martin.

“But unlike an ordinary puzzle where things get easier as you get towards the end, things just got more and more difficult as left over pieces became ever more shapeless and we had to imagine where they might fit,” he said.

“That was our biggest difficulty,” agreed Geismeier.

Some pieces were as small as a fingernail, others weighed one and a half tonnes. One of the statues, a goddess, was broken into 1,800 pieces.

“And every artifact had to be put back together in a single operation” to ensure all the pieces fitted properly, Geismeier added.

I can’t believe it only took 10 years. These are some seriously Zen people.

You can read more about Tel Hallaf, the excavations and the restoration on the project website. The restored statues will go on display starting in January at the Pergamon Museum.

In 1824, John James Audubon was a struggling 29-year-old artist. He noted in his diary that he had made a drawing of small grouse to Philadelphia engraver Gideon Fairman. Fairman’s company specialized in printing currency for banks (each bank at that time issued their own legal tender), and the grouse drawing was meant to be on a New Jersey banknote.

This diary entry, however, is all we’ve had to show for what could be the first published drawing by the ornithological master. Scholars have never been able to find the prints of the drawing or the banknotes.

Robert Peck, curator of art and artifacts at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Eric Newman, a numismatic historian from St. Louis, decided 10 years ago to work together to find the elusive Audubon grouse. Thursday they announced that they had found the Holy Grail of Audubon studies.

On a trip to Chicago, Peck checked another diary, and found an entry from 1826. Audubon was in England, where his landmark book, The Birds of America, with full-size printings of his bird watercolors, was eventually produced, beginning in 1827.

He noted that he presented a friend “with a copy of Fairman’s Engraving of [my] Bank Note Plate.” But had the money ever been printed? Or was it a plate that never got used?

Newman combed through every book written on New Jersey paper money. “That didn’t help me at all,” he said. Then he checked the 10,000 different banknotes issued in the United States for grouse pictures. “I couldn’t find any.”

Finally, he reexamined his own collection of “sample sheets,” printed with various images that bank presidents might want on their bills. Mostly, such sheets contain portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, images of draped Lady Liberties, and, above all, eagles.

But finally, on a sheet issued by Fairman’s firm, likely in 1825 – there! on the lower right! – was a grouse.

The drawing had no signature or attribution, but animal artists at that time made static depictions and this grouse is running against a backdrop of its natural habitat, a style that was singularly Audubon’s.

Peck and Newman think they’ve pieced together what happened. The New Jersey bank was probably the State Bank at Trenton who were major clients of Fairman’s company. The bank failed in 1825 and its banknotes became worthless. Forgers took those worthless notes and counterfeited them up to look like similar notes from another Jersey bank, the State Bank of Camden, that hadn’t gone bankrupt.

Eventually the Camden bank recalled its currency and burned it along with all the Trenton bills it could find. That would explain why the small grouse seemed to disappear from the historical record.