Month: February 2014

Unusual Aztec dog burial found in Mexico City

Medieval, Modern(ish)

Archaeologists excavating underneath an apartment building in the Aztacapozalco neighborhood of Mexico City have unearthed an unusual group burial of 12 dogs dating to the Late Post Classic period of Aztec history (1350 to 1520 A.D.). Although dog burials are not in and of themselves uncommon in Aztec culture, these are unusual because they stand alone. Previous canine remains have been found in conjunction with human remains, or coupled with an important structure as sacrificial offerings. So far, archaeologists have found no human burials or building connected to any of the dogs.

In the Aztec religion, dogs played important roles is rituals and mythology of the underworld. Dogs acted as guardians and escorts for their masters’ souls as they traveled to the underworld. The deity Xolotl, often depicted as dog-headed, created a dog specifically to aid the dead in their voyage. It was the Xoloitzcuintli, also known as the Mexican hairless dog, that Xolotl gave to humanity instructing them to guard the dogs during life in exchange for the dogs guiding them through the nine levels of Mictlan, the main underworld destination. Dogs also played a less sanctified role in Aztec culture: as a dietary protein supplement.

The remains were found between 4.2 feet and 5.5 feet under street level in a pit 6.5 feet square. They are in good condition, skeletons almost entirely intact and articulated. They don’t appear to have been laid to rest in any particular pattern or orientation, but they were buried all at one time on their sides. No artifacts were found in this pit. Ceramics discovered in other trenches around the dog burial provide a contextual date. Their black geometric designs on orange pottery identify the pottery as Aztec III style, household goods that were ubiquitous in Late Post Classic Mexico.

Michael E. Smith, an anthropology professor at Arizona State University who was not involved in the project, said the discovery is important because it is the first such find.

“This is not the first time a burial of a dog has been found, but it is the first find where many dogs were carefully buried together, in a setting that is like a cemetery,” Smith said.

[Archaeologist Rocio] Morales Sanchez said they will need to dig deeper to see if there are other items that could help them find out why the animals were buried in that area.

Smith said it will be important to see the results of the analysis of the bones.

“That work will tell us about the breed of these dogs, and it may tell us how they were killed,” he said. “The full significance of the finds is rarely obvious at time of excavation; the analysis will give the full story.”

Osteological examination suggests these were common dogs, ie mutts, rather than one of the native pure breeds like the small Techichi and the hairless Xoloitzcuintle. The Techichi have unmissable short legs that none of the 12 dogs have and the Xoloitzcuintle lose their premolars in adulthood. The buried dogs were all adults at the time of death with full sets of teeth.

There’s some excellent footage of the excavation in this Spanish language video:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/u_SpPMvoPoM&w=430]

One-cent stamp could cost $20 million at auction

Modern(ish)

The rarest stamp in the world, the 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta, is going up for auction in a dedicated evening sale at Sotheby’s New York office on June 17th. The pre-sale estimate is $10 million to $20 million, either of which would blow away the previous record for a single stamp set by the Swedish Treskilling Yellow when it sold in Zurich for $2.3 million in 1996.

Printed in black ink on magenta colored paper, this simple stamp was an emergency issue. British Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, had been a British colony since the Napoleonic Wars. Originally three separate colonies — Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice — it was united as a single colony in 1833. It was almost 20 years before British Guiana began to receive regular shipments of English postage stamps manufactured by Waterlow & Sons. When one of those shipments was unavoidably delayed in 1856, postmaster E.T.E. Dalton commissioned the printers of the Royal Gazette newspaper in Georgetown to run off a contingency supply of stamps: one-cent magentas, four-cent magentas and four-cent blues.

The one-cent magenta is an octagonal stamp one by 1.25 inches in dimension. It is printed with the image of a three-masted ship in the middle with the colony’s Latin motto “Damus Petimus Que Vicissim” (We give and expect in return) above and below the ship. Postmaster Dalton was apparently unimpressed with the issue, believing them susceptible to forgery. To thwart any attempts to forge the stamps, Dalton had post office workers initial every stamp. The one-cent magenta going up for auction was initialed E.D.W. by the postal clerk E.D. Wight.

Very few of the small emergency run of stamps from a remote colony survived. There are a few examples of the four-cent stamps left, but only one of the one-cent. This sole survivor was rescued for history by a 12-year-old boy. L. Vernon Vaughan, son of a Scottish family living in British Guiana, discovered the stamp in 1873 amidst a group of family papers. He was an amateur stamp collector already, and although he didn’t recognize the stamp’s rarity, he did recognize that it was a stamp he didn’t have in his collection yet. He cut the stamp out and put in his album.

Shortly thereafter, Vaughan sold the stamp to another local collector, Neil McKinnon, for a few shillings. In 1878, McKinnon sent the stamp to Glasgow, Scotland for inspection by experts. From there he sold it to a Liverpool dealer Thomas Ridpath who recognized what a rare and precious piece it was. Ridpath sold it for £150 to Count Philippe la Renotière von Ferrary, a stamp collector of near legendary status who at one point owned both the One-Cent Magenta and the Treskilling Yellow.

Ferrary’s left his vast philatelic collection to the Postmuseum in Berlin after his death in 1917. After World War I ended, the collection was seized by France as part of German war reparations and sold off piecemeal, very much against Ferrary’s wishes (he had wanted his magnificent collection to stay together forever and even willed the museum an endowment to care for the stamps in perpetuity). The British Guiana One-Cent Magenta was sold at auction in 1922 to textile magnate Arthur Hind for a then world record price of $35,000.

That set the course for every other auction of the One-Cent Magenta. The next time it came up for auction was 1970, when it sold to a consortium for a record $280,000. Ten years later it sold at auction for yet another record: $935,000. The buyer was John du Pont, ornithologist, naturalist, amateur sports enthusiast, heir to the du Pont chemical fortune and an avid stamp collector. The last time it was on public display was 1986, when du Pont allowed it to be exhibited at the Ameripex ’86 International Stamp Show in Chicago.

Ten years after that, John du Pont shot his friend, 1984 Olympics champion wrestler Dave Schultz, and killed him. He was found “guilty but mentally ill” of third degree murder. He was sentenced to 13 to 30 years at a minimum security prison in Pennsylvania. In 2010, he died still incarcerated. It’s his estate that is now selling the stamp.

The British Guiana One-Cent Magenta will be traveling to London and Hong Kong this spring, its first public exhibition in 28 years. Then it will return to New York for its special night in June.

3,600-year-old “feathered coffin” found in Luxor

Ancient


A joint Spanish and Egyptian archaeological team excavating the area around the tomb of 18th Dynasty official Djehuty in the Dra Abul-Naga necropolis on Luxor’s west bank has unearthed a beautifully preserved wooden sarcophagus decorated in an elaborate feather design. This coffin type is known as a Rishi coffin, rishi meaning “feathers” or “wings” in Arabic. Anthropoid wooden coffins shaped like humans with linen-wrapped bodies painted in feathers first appeared in 13th Dynasty (1803 – ca. 1649 B.C.), but the oldest ones surviving date to the 17th Dynasty (ca 1600 – 1550 B.C.). Archaeologists believe this coffin dates to around 1600 B.C.

The range when feathered coffins were in regular use is known as the Second Intermediate Period (1800 -1550 B.C.), a turbulent time when the Canaanite Hyksos invaders ruled the eastern Nile Delta and the central monarchy was too weak to assert its control over local governments. According to the Spanish National Research Council’s (CSIC) excavation team leader José Manuel Galán, “This style of coffin is rare because it was in use for only a short period of time when Egypt was not unified. Thus, very few have been found in its original place and have been well documented in the archaeological context.”

This is the 13th season of excavations in the north section of Dra Abul-Naga where Djehuty, overseer of the treasury of Queen Hatshepsut (ca 1470 B.C.), was buried. This year’s work began in January. The team found three burial shafts, the first two of which had been broken into in antiquity. The third burial shaft was dug four meters (13 feet) into the bedrock ending in a chamber that was found still sealed with uneven mud bricks. When excavators removed the bricks, they discovered the rishi coffin inside.

The coffin is two meters (6’6″) long, 50 centimeters (20″) wide and 42 centimeters (16.5″) high. It was discovered intact with the paint colors still brilliant. The feathers drawn on the lid represent Maat, the Egyptian creation goddess of truth, order and law, who weighed the soul of the dead against an ostrich feather to determine whether they would reach the afterlife. The sarcophagus is painted to look like the body is being wrapped in paid of wings, like Maat, who is sometimes depicted with feathered arms, is holding the deceased from behind in a protective embrace.

A funerary inscription stretches from the chest of coffin lid to the foot. It prompts offerings to a man named Neb, presumably the inhabitant of the coffin. His full name and exact titles have yet to be deciphered, but he was a high ranking official of the 17th Dynasty. The mummy is still encased within the sarcophagus and appears to be in good condition.

This finding, along with others conducted in the same area, confirm that Dra Abu el-Naga was where were buried the members of the royal family and their courtiers Dynasty XVII, 1600 B.C. A little known period and at the same time, key to understanding the origin of the Egyptian empire, and the structure and functioning of the administration in the new capital city of Thebes.

For more about the Djehuty Project, including excavation diaries for each season and photo galleries (almost all of which is in Spanish), check out the website.

Richard III’s genome to be sequenced

Medieval, Modern(ish)

The course of our Richard III nerdathon last Saturday did not run smooth, I’m afraid to say. I’ll just tear off the band-aid and state up front that the recording of the colloquium is as messed up as the live stream was. Right now, it doesn’t look like there is much of anything salvageable. St. Louis University’s Jonathan Sawday was kind enough to confirm the sad news in the comments. He apologized too, because he is a scholar and a gentleman, not because whatever went wrong was his fault.

We shall have to feed our Richard III habit with something else, like, say, that a team led by University of Leicester geneticist Dr. Turi King will attempt to sequence the full genome of Richard III and of Michael Ibsen, his relative down the female line from Richard’s sister Anne of York. All they may have in common is in their mitochondrial DNA, but there’s always a chance they share other genetic links.

There’s a chance all of us share some genetic connection to Richard III, and we’ll get the chance to check it out for ourselves once the sequencing is done. Richard’s full genome will be posted online for scholars to study and the rest of us to geek way out over. He will be the first identified historical figure to have his genome sequenced.

Analysis of Richard III’s genome will allow insight into his genetic make-up, including susceptibility to certain diseases, hair and eye colour, and as the genetic basis of other diseases becomes known, these too can be examined for. It is also expected to shed light on his genetic ancestry and relationship to modern human populations. In addition, next generation sequencing technologies will allow the researchers to detect DNA from other organisms such as pathogens. Whole genome sequencing from Otzi the Iceman found the first known human infection with Lyme disease, for example.

Turi King is particularly interested in looking for DNA evidence of a predisposition to scoliosis. Since there are no surviving contemporary portraits of Richard III — the oldest were painted 40 or 50 years after his death — whatever information they can find regarding his appearance and physical traits will be an interesting confirmation or denial of the dead king’s posthumous press.

The sequencing project is being funded to the tune of £100,000 ($165,000) by the Wellcome Trust, the Leverhulme Trust and Alec Jeffreys, the genetics professor at the University of Leicester who developed genetic fingerprinting. It will done at the University of Leicester and in collaboration with Professor Michael Hofreiter at the University of Potsdam.

Although the question of where to reinter the remains has become a thorny one thanks to the legal challenge brought by the Plantagenet Alliance, a group of distant relatives of Richard’s who believe he should be buried in York rather than in Leicester, the king’s remains and all the samples taken from him will have to be buried sooner or later. Once they’re gone, there will be no going back to get a second look. Have a fully sequenced genome will provide new information well into the future. As scientists identify more genes and determine which are responsible for any given feature, researchers will be able to return to the recorded genome to find them there.

Here’s Turi King giving a brief introduction to the genome sequencing project:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/8_-crHkVgUg&w=430]

Here’s Leicester’s pitch to keep Richard’s body in the city where he was buried:

The next movement on the burial issue will be a judicial review at the High Court in London March 13th.

A4s together one last time for The Great Goodbye

Modern(ish), Museums

After smashing attendance records at The Great Gathering, the reunion of all six surviving A4 Class Pacific steam locomotives held at the National Railway Museum in York last July, Bittern, Dominion of South Africa, Dominion of Canada, Sir Nigel Gresley, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mallard, holder of the world land speed record for steam locomotives, will come together one last time for The Great Goodbye at the National Railway Museum in Shildon.

2013 was a banner year for the A4s. Mallard reached the record speed of 125.88 miles per hour on July 3rd, 1938. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the locomotive’s still unmatched accomplishment, the four A4s in museums in the UK were restored and refurbished. The two remaining were shipped back from Montreal, Canada, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, in an immensely complex operation, giving train lovers a chance to see the six A4s refurbished to original condition and all together for the first time.

The six were on display together at The Great Gathering in York from July 3rd to July 17th before splitting up for events around the country. They regrouped at York on October 26th for The Autumn Great Gathering where, among other events, students from York College bathed the A4s in beautiful colored lights for the Locos in a Different Light display. There are some beautiful pictures of the A4s looking even more like works of art than they do just being themselves in this Flickr album.

Also not to be missed are this National Railway Museum blog entry about the Heritage Painting team that restored Mallard — I love the picture of it in its somber matte black war time livery — and this entry summarizing the highlights of Mallard‘s 75 years.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/2DN2LvLOBOM&w=430]

The year of the A4s is coming to a close now, sadly. The Great Goodbye opens Saturday, February 15th and lasts just a week, closing on Sunday, February 23th. Exhibit hours are 9:30AM and 5:00PM and admission is free. If it’s anything like the other Great Gathering events, crowds will flock to see the locomotives so expect lines. All the special photography events and four of seven curator talks are already sold out, but there are still tickets available for the formal Gala Dinner on February 21st (book online here).

There are no firm dates yet because it will depend on weather conditions, a very tricky proposition right now in England which is suffering from horrendous floods, but some time this Spring or Summer, Dominion of Canada will return to the Canadian Railway Museum, in Saint-Constant, a suburb of Montreal, and Dwight D. Eisenhower will return to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay. The chances of them ever crossing the Atlantic again are slim to none.