Friendship-killing Boldre Hoard goes on display

A hoard of 1,608 coins Roman coins discovered by metal detectorists in a field it Boldre, in the New Forest near Lymington, Hampshire, in 2014, has gone on public display for the first time at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington. The hoard dates to the 3rd century A.D. and contains bronze radiates from the second half of the 3rd century. The earliest coin in the group was minted under the reign of Trebonianus Gallus (249-51 A.D.). The most recent is barely 25 years older, struck in 276 in the waning days of the emperor Tacitus (275-6 A.D.). The bulk of the coins were found in the remains of a round vessel, 15 sherds from the bottom of the earthenware pot.

After slumbering underground for more than 1,700 years since its owner buried his savings, disturbed only by the farm equipment that likely broke the pot, the hoard has seen quite a bit of drama starting with the moment of its discovery. There were several metal detectorists scanning that field in Boldre on May 4th, 2014, among them two old friends Andy Aartsen and James Petts. Aartsen made the first discovery: 25-30 coins on their own. Then Petts hit the motherlode, finding the remains of the pot and its coin hoard of more than 1,500 pieces.

Aartsen had scanned that area earlier and gotten a signal but had moved on. According to the rules of the metal detecting club, if you walk away from a signal it counts as abandonment and the next guy gets to pick up where you left off, but Aartsen apparently thought his earlier signal granted him perpetual rights because he told Petts “Eff off, it’s mine.” That’s a quote from James Petts’ testimony at the coroner’s inquest that determined whether the coin hoard was official treasure by the standards of the Treasure Act of 1996, which is downright spicy compared to the usual testimony from British Museum and Portable Antiquities Scheme experts one encounters at treasure inquests.

The conflict caused a permanent rift between the former friends, and it really wasn’t about the money because bronze radiates aren’t big ticket items. The amount of the valuation that would be paid by the museum that acquired the hoard was around £8,000 to be split 50/50 by the finder and landowner. This fight was all about credit, who gets to be the official finder of the Boldre Hoard. Andy Aartsen wanted to be declared the sole finder; Petts wanted it declared a joint find of both men, which seems more than fair given that he found the vast majority of the hoard and the container. At the time of the inquest, the dispute was still ongoing and Central Hampshire Coroner Grahame Short suggested the two ex-friends might have to duke it out in court if they couldn’t come to an agreement. I couldn’t discover what the disposition their dispute was, but the articles about the new exhibition refer only to James Petts as the finder.

The British Museum seemed interested in acquiring the rarest of the coins — three coins struck under the rule of Marius who reigned for exactly 12 weeks in 269 A.D. — but that would have broken up the hoard. The St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery wanted to keep every coin and the pot together and put them on display a few miles away from where they were discovered and that was going to require some fast fundraising.

Rosalyn Goulding, of the museum, said the coins were an “exciting” find for the town.

“We haven’t had too much evidence of Roman activity here but this find helps us to build up a picture of settlement and agriculture,” she said.

“One of the coins is really interesting because it has an unrecorded reverse.

“The emperors would strike a series of coins and they each had a pattern to them – they would have similar things on the front and on the reverse – but this one had an altar on the back which has never before been seen on a Divus Victorious coin, or any coins issued by Victorious.”

Historian and television presenter Dan Snow who lives in the area launched the fundraising campaign last fall with a target of £30,000 ($40,000). Donations large and small came from private individuals, local businesses, organizations and grants from charitable trusts. When the January 31st deadline arrived, the campaign was just short of its target at £27,842.20. One of the donors, American Anglophile Richard Beleson, bumped up his already generous donation of £7,500 in matching funds to cover the shortfall.

Most of that money was not needed for the acquisition of the hoard itself, which was modestly valued. It was to be spent on conservation of the hoard, necessary restoration of the space and to build a secure display case which will preserve the coins and pot in controlled conditions. The hoard’s needs fit seemlessly with the museum’s. A month before the fundraiser was launched, the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery began an extensive refurbishment paid for by a £1.78 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The galleries were enlarged, the entrance improved and a new cafe was built. All together, this was a major upgrade for the small local museum, making it a fitting home for the Boldre Hoard and the extra eyeballs it is sure to draw. (Everybody loves a hoard, especially when it’s a local kid made good.)

The refurbished museum had its grand reopening on Saturday with the Boldre Hoard as its centerpiece and signature treasure. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu did the honors, officially opening the inauguration day festivities.

Coptic murals found in Egyptian monastery

Medieval Coptic murals have been discovered on the walls of the Monastery of Saint Bishoy at Wadi El Natrun in the Nitrian Desert of northern Egypt. The monastery was damaged by flooding in 2015 and experts from the Ministry of Antiquities have been working since then to restore it. The frescoes were discovered under a layer of modern mortar. They were painted between the 9th and 13th centuries and depict saints and angels. Some of the frescoes have Coptic inscriptions underneath them.

“The most distinguished paintings are those on the western and eastern walls of the church,” [Ministry of Antiquities scientist Ahmed El-Nemr] said, describing the painting on the western wall as showing a woman named as Refka and her five sons, who were martyred during the persecution of Christians by the Roman empire.

The painting on the eastern wall depicts three saints and an archangel, and features Coptic writings below.

El-Nemr explained that when restorers removed the modern additions they stumbled upon the ambon, an elevated platform that is a feature of many orthodox churches.

The newly discovered ambon is made of mud-brick covered with a layer of mortar and decorated with a red cross.

Some geometric drawings, crosses and lettering were also found in various parts of the church.

The age of the paintings, inscriptions and the ambon are of particular significance because they date to a period when the monastery church was undergoing extensive alterations. Historical and religious records document extensive changes to the architecture and decoration of Saint Bishoy’s in 840 AD, during the Abbasid era, and in 1069 AD, during the Fatimid caliphate. Archaeologists hope the newly discovered features may elucidate some the church’s original design and fill in some of the blanks in the timeline of its construction phases from antiquity into the modern era.

The monastery was founded in the 4th century by Saint Bishoy (320 – 417 A.D.), a deeply devout monk who, like many of his time, emulated the ascetics and lived in the desert wilderness. His humility, dedication to prayer, hard work and the poor earned him a following of thousands who flocked to live in mountain caves surrounding his cave in what is now Deir el-Surian, about a third of a mile from the Monastery of Saint Bishoy.

According to Coptic hagiographies, Bishoy’s humbleness netted him at least two personal meetings with the risen Christ. The first time he was washing the feet of passing strangers, as was his wont, when he spotted crucifixion scars on the feet of one of them and realized he’d just washed Jesus’ feet. Another time he offered to carry an old ailing monk up the mountain on his back only to find the ailing old man was Jesus in disguise (again). Jesus told him then that because he had kept his body pure through his asceticism and used it only to serve the poor, lowly and God, including carrying God on its back up a mountain, Bishoy’s body would never decay.

Jesus kept his promise. When Bishoy’s body was moved to the Wadi El Natrun monastery in 841 A.D. by order of Saint Joseph I of Alexandria, 52nd Pope of Alexandria, it was indeed found to be incorrupt. The saint’s body lies in the monastery church to this day, and according to witnesses is still incorrupt.

Entirely non-alien child with cranial deformation found in Crimea

Archaeologists and student volunteers have discovered the skeletal remains of a young child with an artificially deformed cranium in a necropolis on the Kerch peninsula in eastern Crimea. The team from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Archeology Foundation have been excavating the ancient necropolis of Kyz-Aul for three weeks. Several graves dating from the 1st century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. have already been unearthed during this field season. They’ve found the remains of Sarmatian soldiers in monumental stone crypts and horse burials, but the child’s grave is the only one to feature the elongated skull characteristic of intentional cranial deformation.

Researchers have confirmed from osteological analysis that the remains are those of a boy. Because his fontanelle was not fully closed, scientists were able to determine that he was around 18 months old at time of death. His remains were radiocarbon dated to the 2nd century A.D. when the peninsula was part of the Bosporan Kingdom, a Hellenistic kingdom that became a client state of the Roman Empire in 1st century. The bones are in an excellent state of preservation. Buried with the child were a clay vessel near his head and a few small beads of colored glass. The boy was wearing a copper alloy bracelet on his right wrist. He was interred directly in the ground. No remains of a coffin, gravestone or marker were found.

The excavation team nicknamed this find “the grave of an alien” because of the skull shape, an unfortunate phrase that all of the articles in the press have glommed onto even though intentional cranial deformation has been an entirely terrestrial human phenomenon for thousands of years. Examples of it have been found in every inhabited continent, and the inhabitants of the Black Sea coast, most notably the Sarmatians, had been altering their children’s’ skull shapes for centuries by the time this little boy was born.

The cranial modification process began in infancy when the bones of the skull are malleable. In the Black Sea region, people wrapped plaits around babies’ heads and over time the pressure of the wrapping changed the shape of the skull. The elongated egg shape was considered more aesthetically pleasing than the regular old boring skulls they were born with, and had important cultural and social significance because it was an attribute of the Sarmatian military nobility who were increasingly powerful in the Bosporan Kingdom. It was primarily boys destined to be elite fighters who had their skulls modified, so it’s likely this child was slated to be a Sarmatian warrior.

The date of the child burial is a meaningful one within this context because the Sarmatian warrior elite, who mainly fought as heavy cavalry for the Bosporan Kingdom, had grown in power and influence to such a degree that by the 2nd century A.D., the formerly Hellenistic kingdom was increasingly Sarmatized. It was in the 2nd century that the last of the Greek ruling dynasties died out and was replaced by a new Sarmatian dynasty. This takeover had far-reaching cultural implications. Artisan crafts were decorated with Sarmatian motifs instead of Greek ones. Even the way people dressed changed, with trousers and long-sleeved shirts replacing the Greek tunics and gowns.

At the same time, Sarmatians made peace with the Romans, who had been fighting them since the 1st century B.C., and in 175 A.D. negotiated a treaty with Emperor Marcus Aurelius. By the terms of the treaty, the Sarmatians agreed to send Rome 8,000 of their famed heavy cavalry. More than half of them were sent very far from home to guard Hadrian’s Wall. Sarmatian artifacts — weapons, beads — have been found at the wall, and there are surviving documents that record Sarmatian squadrons manning several of the forts.

Longest funerary inscription found on Pompeiian tomb

Archaeologists working near Pompeii’s Porta Stabia gate have unearthed a monumental tomb with the longest funerary inscription ever discovered in the ancient city. The tomb was found by accident during maintenance and restoration work on buildings in the San Paolino area as part of the EU-funded Great Pompeii Project. A crew restoring a 19th century palazzo slated to become the new library and offices of the archaeological superintendency came across a fragment of marble while doing depth tests on the foundations. Marble is very rarely used in Pompeiian funerary monuments, so archaeologists realized immediately that this could be something special. Because a new excavation was outside the parameters of the EU funding, they had to scrounge up 200,000 euros from the regular budget to dig the find site in anticipation of discovering something of significance. They were not disappointed.

The top of the tomb was lost, likely destroyed during the construction of the palazzo in hte 19th century, but what remains is a large and imposing marble structure that is unique among Pompeiian funerary monuments. The inscription carved into the marble facade is more than four meters (13 feet) long and has seven lines eulogizing the deceased’s life and successes. He was grand even as a teenager, we are assured, when he hosted a great banquet to celerate his donning of the toga virilis (“toga of manhood”) when he was 15-17 years old. He set up no fewer than 456 triclinia (formal dining rooms) to accomodate thousands of members of the public. Not content with merely feeding everyone, he treated them to games fielding 416 gladiators. We know from inscriptions and contemporary sources that no more than 30 pairs of gladiators fought in the regular games in Pompeii, so this figure is miles out of the ordinary, the kind of spectacle you’d see in Rome, not in a modest southern Italian colony.

Largess is a recurring theme in the res gestae of this prominet citizen. Other subjects covered in the inscription are his wedding and its extra fancy banquet, the political and religious offices he held, the many gladiatorial games and venationes (beast hunts) he sponsored, his generous gifts of silver coin to the people and moneys in support of magistrates and guilds. He was one of the duoviri quinquennales (the two heads of the city administration elected every five years with additional powers to update the census) and was acclaimed by the people as patronus of the city, which he humbly declines in the last line of the inscription because he is unworthy of so great an hour.

Inscription detail. Photo courtesy the Special Superintendency for the Archaeological Heritage of Naples and Pompeii.Director General of the Pompeii archaeological site Massimo Osanna calls it the most important find of the last few decades, and one of the most important in the history of the site. He’s all but certain of the identity of the tomb’s occupant. The details in the biographical inscription, the luxuriousness of the monument and its location near the tombs of the Alleius family strongly suggest this was the final resting place of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius, duoviri quinquennales for 55-56 A.D. and an immensely rich and well-connected games impresario. No Pompeiian is better documented in the archaeological record. His name appears in 17 inscriptions, graffiti and edicts painted on the walls on the city.

One of the edicts painted on the facade of the house of A. Trebus Valens on the Via dell’Abbondanza advertises Maius’ latest gift to the people: “Twenty pairs of gladiators and their substitutes of the quinquennialis Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius will fight at Pompeii. No public monies will be used.” Illustrating that any excuse will do to throw a party, another edict on the Via dell’Abbondanza announces: “For the inauguration of the paintings on wood of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius, on June 13th, there will be a parade, a hunt of wild beasts, fighters, and the velarium.” Maius died a year before the cataclysmic eruption of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii in 79 A.D.

He was very much a new man, a symbol of a society that was becoming increasingly mobile under the emperors of the 1st century. His father was a freedman who had made a fortune and had no bones about spending it on massively oversized celebrations to get his son started on a political career that would be largely based on throwing the biggest and best games in town. His humble beginnings were no deterrent to Maius’ ascent. He was a personal friend to the emperor Nero, and indeed, may have been involved in the resolution of one of Pompeii’s most explosive events before the literally explosive event that stopped the city in its tracks.

In 59 A.D., there was a giant and deadly brawl in the amphitheater between the local Pompeiians and the residents of nearby Nuceria, which had been a rival since Sulla’s conquest of Pompeii in 80 B.C. Old resentments were stirred up afresh when Nero gave some Pompeiian territories to Nuceria two years before the fight at the amphitheater. This likely played a part in things coming to blows that day, although it’s unknown exactly what sparked the conflict.

Tacitus described this riot in Book XIV of his Annals:

About the same time a trifling beginning led to frightful bloodshed between the inhabitants of Nuceria and Pompeii, at a gladiatorial show exhibited by Livineius Regulus, who had been, as I have related, expelled from the Senate. With the unruly spirit of townsfolk, they began with abusive language of each other; then they took up stones and at last weapons, the advantage resting with the populace of Pompeii, where the show was being exhibited. And so there were brought to Rome a number of the people of Nuceria, with their bodies mutilated by wounds, and many lamented the deaths of children or of parents. The emperor entrusted the trial of the case to the Senate, and the Senate to the consuls, and then again the matter being referred back to the Senators, the inhabitants of Pompeii were forbidden to have any such public gathering for ten years, and all associations they had formed in defiance of the laws were dissolved. Livineius and the others who had excited the disturbance, were punished with exile.

Before now, the Tacitus passage, a fresco in the house of Actius Anicetus and three graffiti found on walls at Pompeii were the only explicit references to the amphitheater riot of 59. The funerary inscription adds a key piece of information about this event. Thanks to the deceased’s personal relationship with Nero, he was able to persuade him to allow the two duoviri exiled as punishment for the brawl to return to Pompeii. This is the only reference to the duoviri having been exiled as well as the only reference to the intercessionary role Maius played. It opens up the possibility that he was involved in the softening and lifting of the 10-year ban on public events at the amphitheater. It’s known that some combat spectacles like animal hunts took place during the first three years of the ban, and it was lifted entirely in 62 A.D. to celebrate the restoration of the amphitheater after an earthquake.

Excavation of the tomb. Photo courtesy the Special Superintendency for the Archaeological Heritage of Naples and Pompeii.There is no name recorded in the inscription. It was probably in a larger font on a higher panel on the tomb facade which is now lost. Archaeologists are still excavating so it’s possible we’ll receive absolute confirmation of whether this is in fact the tomb of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius. Meanwhile, the res gestae inscription on the tomb, the first of its kind ever found in Pompeii, make it as close to a sure thing as we can get.

Another first of its kind discovery was made at this remarkable site. Just in front of the tomb are two cart ruts embedded in a layer of stone debris two meters (6.5 feet) thick. The debris is from the rockfall phase of the eruption, and tracks were left by people fleeing the city. These are the first archaeological remains of Pompeiians mid-flight ever found.

This clip from the Italian television show Petrolio captures the discovery of the funerary inscription:

Wheat residue found in Bronze Age lunch box

In 2012, a wooden box was exposed by melting glacier ice of the Lötschenpass, 2650 meters above sea level in the Bernese Alps. Round and about eight inches in diameter, the unusual box was made of three different kinds of wood: pine for the floor, willow for the curved side and spliced larch boughs for the seams joining floor to side. Radiocarbon testing found the box dates to the early Bronze Age, about 4,000 years ago.

The ice that preserved the wooden box for four millennia also preserved traces of its contents. An international team of researchers analyzed the residue expecting to find milk remnants, perhaps all that was left of a porridge type food. Samples of the residue were subjected to lipid and protein analysis. Researchers examined the samples using microscopic and molecular analysis to identify any lipids and gas chromatography mass spectrometry for the proteins, a combination of techniques commonly used to identify residue in ancient and prehistoric ceramic vessels which survive in far greater numbers than wooden ones.

The results were surprising. Instead of milk remnants, the team found alkylresorcinols, indicators of the presence of whole grains.

Dr André Colonese, from BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, said : “We didn’t find any evidence of milk, but we found these phenolic lipids, which have never been reported before in an archaeological artefact, but are abundant in the bran of wheat and rye cereals and considered biomarkers of wholegrain intake in nutritional studies”.

“This is an extraordinary discovery if you consider that of all domesticated plants, wheat is the most widely grown crop in the world and the most important food grain source for humans, lying at the core of many contemporary culinary traditions.

“One of the greatest challenges of lipid analysis in archaeology has been finding biomarkers for plants, there are only a few and they do not preserve very well in ancient artefacts. You can imagine the relevance of this study as we have now a new tool for tracking early culinary use of cereal grains, it really is very exciting. The next step is to look for them in ceramic artefacts,” Dr Colonese added.

If phenolic lipids can be identified in ceramic vessels as well, it opens up the possibility of tracing the use and spread of cereals at the dawn of agriculture, information that is currently non-existent.

Researchers can’t tell at this point how the wheat cultivars made their way into the Swiss Alps. Some of the valleys in the area are known to have been inhabited during the Bronze Age, and grave goods have been discovered in burials in the neighboring canton of Valais that were imports from north and south of the mountains. The Lötschenpass may have been part of a trade route linking the Bernese Highlands to the Valais. Or it may not have anything to do with trade, just a box lunch packed by a lone hiker on a hunt or a drover pasturing cattle at higher altitudes than archaeologists realized were being used for grazing during this period.

Dr Francesco Carrer, from Newcastle University, said: “This evidence sheds new light on life in prehistoric alpine communities, and on their relationship with the extreme high altitudes. People travelling across the alpine passes were carrying food for their journey, like current hikers do. This new research contributed to understanding which food they considered the most suitable for their trips across the Alps.”

The study on the identification of cereals in the Bronze Age box has been published in Scientific Reports and can be read here.