Month: October 2017

Bronze Age burials found at British Army base

Ancient

Quick non-Roman one today because I’ve been having upload issues with the large images and I feel a pressing need to collapse in happy exhaustion. Thankfully I planned for just this eventuality and had some backup stories lined up.

A team from Wessex Archaeology, contractors who have been surveying the site of a new soccer field at the Royal School of Artillery at Larkhill Garrisons in Wiltshire, has unearthed three inhumation burials from the Bronze Age. Because the camp is so close to Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, all planned development sites get a thorough archaeological once-over before construction begins. Six trenches were dug into the natural chalk under the site and archaeological materials were found ranging in date from prehistoric to the World War II period.

The three Bronze Age burials are the oldest, although absolute dating of the human skeletal remains has not been done yet to confirm their ages. None of them contain grave goods which would have provided dates, but the types of burials, location and broken pottery found in the fill strongly suggests a Bronze Age origin.

Ruth Panes, the project manager for Wessex Archaeology, said: “Of the three burials, one was an infant and the other has been identified through osteological assessment as a teenage male aged 15 to 17.

“He would have been robust in appearance and his remains contained no obvious signs of pathology. The infant had been placed into a grave in an existing ditch and buried. Over time, the ditch gradually silted up and sealed the grave.

“Prehistoric pottery was found in the ditch fill which sealed the grave, which suggests the burial is also prehistoric. One body was placed in a crouched position and we know such burials typically date between 2400 to 1600 BC.”

Small samples of bone will be extracted from the remains for radiocarbon dating. Further osteological analysis of one of the three who appears to have been buried in a prone position, an unusual posture for an inhumation, should help determine age, sex, any health issues, the person’s lifestyle and perhaps cause of death. Because the positioning of the body of the grave is of particular interest, Wessex Archaeology has 3D scanned the burial in situ and made the model available to the public.

Larkhill Camp, Army Basing Programme Burial
by Wessex Archaeology
on Sketchfab

The aquila has landed!

Ex Cathedra, Roma, Caput Mundi

The flight was terrible, as they always are these days, and departure was delayed over an hour, but it was all forgotten upon landing. (Okay, upon getting through security.) Sun and blue sky and Father Tiber welcomed me in their warm embrace and I hit the streets as soon as I dropped my crap off at the hotel. A quick jaunt to St. Peter’s where I hoped to catch the Pope canonizing some saintly types but alas, didn’t quite make it on time. That’s cool, though. I got to hear the Vatican band play the Italian national anthem and enjoyed the jaw-dropping view of how freaking clean the colonnade and facade of the basilica are. It never once looked anything near that ideal off-white when I lived there. And the fountains in St. Peter’s Square! In my day, whatever parts weren’t black as coal on them were coated in green algae slime. Not anymore. All that gunk has been replaced by pure travertine creaminess.

Follow in my footsteps.


Sono Pazzi Questi Romani manhole cover with original sampietrini basalt pavers. Murder on the shoes and just plain murder when they’re wet, but they are so quintessentially Rome. They’re gradually replaced with terrible modern replacements everywhere except on small streets and in the historic center to preserve its character.


Just a charming little fountain at the end of a street near the Tiber. It’s drooling more than fountaining these days on account of water restrictions.


I crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Sisto and saw this in the distance. Makes it easy not to get lost even after so much time has passed.


I didn’t cross over to see the Castel Sant’Angelo up close and personal due to my hustling to get to St. Pete’s. Maybe I’ll go back to see it lit up tonight.


Almost there!


And here we are. So bright and creamy in the sunlight. The banners you see hanging from the church balcony celebrate the new saints, Capuchin friar Angelo d’Acri (d. 1739); Manuel Míguez González, founder of the Daughters of the Divine Shepherdess (d. 1925); the 30 “Matryrs of Natal” who were killed by Dutch troops and their local allies under the direction of radical Calvinist Antonio Paraopaba in Natal, Brazil, in 1645; and the “Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala,” three indigenous Mexican 12- and 13-year-olds who were killed in the late 1520s (the Franciscan advance guard evangelizers only got there in 1524) for refusing to renounce their Catholicism.

That’s 35 saints made in one fell swoop! And I was there! (In time to hear the band wrap it up and watch the guys on the dais parade out solemly.)

 

Gold rings, Roman coin found at Sandby Borg

Ancient

Archaeologists excavating the ringfort of Sandby Borg on the Swedish island of Öland have found two gold finger rings and a Roman gold coin. The three pieces were found nestled together next to large red limestone slab in the remains of a house in the southwest corner of the fort. The rings are small and were probably meant to be worn by a woman which is historically significant because so far no identifiably female human remains have been found at Sandby Borg.

The gold pieces were found in House 52, an unusual structure that has been the focus of excavations this year. The form of the house differs from the standard rectangle shapes of the other dwellings in the fort. The northern side of it is rounded and centered in the round area is the red limestone slab. Underneath the slab is layer of sand several inches thick. The floor is not this same sand, so that means it was deliberately packed underneath the slab, perhaps to elevate it for some ritual function. Another unique find made only in House 52 is a group of small glass shards. They are very thin, expensive examples of Roman glass and archaeologists think they were part of a small vessel. It’s the only glass that has been found yet in Sandby Borg.

“We haven’t found treasure like this before, though we have found jewellery deposits,” Helena Victor, the project leader, told The Local. “It’s always exciting to find gold – the team will always remember this day. It’s also important because we now know a lot more about the house where they were found. It seems to have had a special purpose, and it may have been the house of a chieftain or a minor king.” […]

“This discovery could help explain why the massacre took place – maybe these people had too much gold and jewellery. Archaeology is all about finding out about people, with a very long-term perspective, so we can also compare these finds to violence we see nowadays, and use them to discuss for example why humans are so brutal and hateful,” she added.

Unlike in the other houses, House 52 has no animal bones. The remains of an elderly man were found there last year — he had been killed and left over the fireplace — and this season the highly fragmented skull of a child was unearthed on the street just to the south of House 52.

The coin dates to the reign of the Western Emperor Valentinian III. The obverse bears his image while the reverse depicts the emperor with one foot on the head of a barbarian, a common motif in Roman coinage even in the declining years of the Empire when victories were scarce. Valentinian had Hunnic invasions to deal with as well as constant uprisings in Gaul, Hispania and the Germanic provinces.

The first professional archaeological investigation of the site in 2010, spurred by the appearance of two looting pits, discovered precious metals as well, including gilded silver brooches, buckles, rings and pendants. A gold Roman coin, another solidus of Valentinian III struck around 440-455 A.D., was found the next year in the first full excavation.

It was that first season of digs that revealed the ringfort was destroyed in a violent event in the 5th century A.D. during the turbulent Migration Period. Its thick, high walls were breached, the dwellings within razed and the people slaughtered. Since 2011, excavations have discovered the remains of 26 people, mostly adult men.

This video (Swedish narration only) has some neat footage of the discovery and excavation of the rings and coin:

Colosseum’s vertiginous cheap seats to reopen

Ancient, Ex Cathedra, Roma, Caput Mundi

The latest phase of the Colosseum restoration has made possible the reopening of what were once its cheapest seats and are now a vertigo-inducing thrill ride with the best view in town, 40 years after they were last open to the public.

Its structural issues and propensity to drop heavy stone blocks at unpredictable times for decades severely restricted what areas were accessible to the public. After nearly four years of restoration, visitors can already tour the subterranean level, where the gladiator cells were and the wild beasts were kept before the slaughter, the imperial terrace and I level (where the senators sat), the II level (where the knights sat) and the III level, a gallery never before opened to the public where painstaking cleaning revealed crown insignia in white plaster. That was where what we’d now call the middle class got to sit. The IV level was reserved for merchants and assorted petty bourgeoisie. Last and indubitably least were the denizens of the V level, the city’s poor who couldn’t afford a closer view of the carnage or fancy marble seats. (I’d take the wood benches any day, thanks.)

Starting next month, visitors, in guided tours of no more than 25 people at a time (for their own safety), will be able to view the fourth and fifth levels and a connecting hallway that has never been open to visitors. A lucky few got to visit the newly opened floors at a press preview on October 3rd.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini takes in the view. Photo by Andreas Solaro, AFP.Italy’s culture minister Dario Francheschini was on hand to visit the new levels, which during ancient Roman times were the cheap seats, since they were farthest away from the spectacle.

Today, however, the top two levels of the 52-metre (171-foot) high Colosseum offer priceless views of the stadium itself, as well as the nearby Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and the rest of Rome.

The nosebleed seats will be open to the public come November 1st which turns out to be a bit of a bummer for me because guess where your friendly neighborhood history blogger is going. Oh, and at least I’m getting there while access to the Pantheon is still free. They’re planning on charging 3 euros a ticket for the most visited site in the city (an estimated 7.4 million visitors in 2016, a million more than the Colosseum) starting in January.

That’s right. The mothership is calling me home. I’m flying to Rome on Saturday and will be there through next Sunday! Since my days will be crammed full of extremely nerdy pursuits, my blogging will be reduced in terms of length and depth of research, but I still hope to post daily. Due to time constraints and the potential of connectivity contretemps, it will be more of a travelogue/postcards from Rome sort of deal, which I hope will provide you some enjoyment on its own merits. My general plan will be at long last to see in person things I’ve only posted about in the past (newly opened archaeological sites, museum exhibitions, etc.) and write eye-witness updates. With pictures. Lots and lots of big pictures.

All of this is hotel Wi-Fi permitting, of course, although I suppose nowadays it’s a simple matter to find free Wi-Fi out in the wild in Rome. The last time I was there you still needed a school email account and a floppy disk to use this series of tubes they call the internets. I saw a gluten-free pizzeria when I was checking out the historic center on Google Maps the other day. If there is anywhere in the world where you feel the passage of time more keenly than Rome, I don’t know of it. I shall wallow in it.

Update 2: National Portrait Gallery bought Adams portrait

Modern(ish), Museums

The best-case scenario for history and museum nerds has come to pass! The buyer of the 1843 daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams sold at auction last week for $360,500 is the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery.

John Quincy Adams silhouette by by Henry Williams, 1809. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian InstitutionThis could not be a more perfect fit. Collecting images of US presidents has been a key part of the NPG’s mission since the museum opened in 1968. Today it houses the only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House, from formal oil paintings by portrait masters like Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull to bronze sculptures of political cartoons, plaster casts of presidential body parts, medals, prints, silhouettes and of course, photographs. The Smithsonian already has two other daguerreotypes of John Quincy Adams in its collections, one in the NPG taken a few months after the Haas portrait in August of 1843, the second in the National Museum of American History taken in 1846.

The Haas daguerreotype one will take pride of place because it is older than the others in the collection and indeed the earliest known surviving photographic portrait of an American president.

“John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was the last President to have a direct tie back to the Founding generation, and the fact that he sat in front of a camera to have his portrait taken, is sort of remarkable,” said Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery. “It confirms that in many ways America was born modern; embracing not only new government ideals but also the latest technologies that helped its leaders to become accessible to the public. To have acquired this unique piece of American history on the eve of our 50th anniversary has particular resonance because one of our goals is to remind people that the individual actions of our leaders and how we record their legacies impact the future.” […]

Adding to the significance of bringing this historic portrait to the museum is the crucial role Adams played in establishing the Smithsonian Institution. For over a decade, Adams tirelessly advocated for the implementation of James Smithson’s bequest to establish an institution dedicated to the increase and diffusion of knowledge. With this acquisition, the Portrait Gallery brings this singular treasure to its permanent collection and enriches the way the museum portrays Adams’ remarkable story as President, statesman and champion for the Smithsonian.

The newly acquired portrait of John Quincy Adams will go on public display next year in the National Portrait Gallery’s revamped America’s Presidents exhibition.