Month: March 2021

Spider god mural found in Peru

Ancient

Archaeologists have discovered a mural depicting the spider god of the pre-Hispanic Cupisnique culture in the Lambayeque region of northern Peru. The mural was applied to the mud brick wall 50 feet wide 16 feet of a sacred structure. It was painted in ochre, yellow, grey against a white background. It’s hard to make out now that so much of it is lost, but the yellow zig-zag bits are the legs of the spider god. The vertical ochre stripe down the middle of the legs is the abdomen. The ochre gum-drop shape surrounded by a yellow boundary and topped by a blue rectangle is interpreted as the hilt of a knife or dagger.

The spider god was associated with rainfall, fertility and hunting. Archaeologist Régulo Franco Jordán hypothesizes that this temple, which was built close to the river, was dedicated to water deities.

“The spider on the shrine is associated with water and was an incredibly important animal in pre-Hispanic cultures, which lived according to a ceremonial calendar. It’s likely that there was a special, sacred water ceremony held between January and March when the rains came down from the higher areas.”

The Cupisnique occupied the northern coast of Peru between around 2000 and 500 B.C., and several of their adobe temples have been discovered in Lambayeque. Unfortunately callous agricultural expansion has taken an enormous toll on the region’s irreplaceable cultural heritage. The Early Cupisnique brick temple at Ventarrón was consumed in a fire set by farmers burning their sugar cane fields. Its murals, radiocarbon dated to 2000 B.C., the oldest absolutely dated mural art in the Americas, were completely destroyed.

The recently-discovered huaca, dubbed Tomabalito, also suffered extensive damage when neighboring farmers attempted to expand their avocado and sugar cane cultivation. Using earthmovers, they leveled an estimated 60% of the ancient temple complex. The existence of the temple only came to light in November 2020, when Régulo Franco Jordán, discoverer of the Lady of Cao burial, was informed of the appearance of monumental mural. He inspected the find himself, and identified it as a Cupisnique construction based on the characteristic conical adobe used to make the wall. He believes it’s about 3,200 years old.

Jordán reported the discovery to regional cultural heritage authorities who initiated an emergency archaeological intervention. The aim for now is to conserve what’s left of the mural and of the site. While archaeologists are investigating, authorities have applied for the area to be declared a protected site. They have also filed a complaint against the people who bulldozed the site.

Boat grave warriors laid to rest on down bedding

Medieval

The warriors in two Iron Age boat graves in Valsgärde, outside Uppsala in central Sweden, were laid softly to their eternal rest on down bedding. The boat graves date to the 7th century, and their featherbeds are the oldest down bedding known in Scandinavia.

Feathers were widely traded in the Middle Ages, and there are extensive records of the trade going back to the 15th century. Eiderdown from the St. Cuthbert’s duck (aka, the common eider) was the most popular feather commodity, harvested from purpose-built nesting boxes on the northern coast of Norway and sold over trade routes throughout Scandinavia and Europe. The earliest written reference comes Ohthere of Hålogaland, the Viking explorer who relayed an account of his travels to King Alfred of Wessex in the late 9th century. He said the Sami people payed their taxes to him in buckets full of feathers.

Feathers are infrequent survivors on the archaeological record, so the bedding in the Valsgärde burials provides a rare opportunity to investigate what was a highly-prized and valuable commodity. Researchers studied the feathers to determine their origins and assess whether they may have been traded over long distances, like the eiderdown from north Norway.

Excavated starting in the 1930s, burials Valsgärde 7 and 8 were two of 15 richly-furnished warrior boat burials from the Late Iron Age found at the site. The two boats are 30 feet long and have no masts. They were row boats, long enough to accommodate four or five pairs of oars. The men were inhumed with highly decorated helmets, shields, swords and daggers as well as use items like hunting gear and cooking tools. The remains of feather-stuffed pillows and bolsters were found under the warriors, the shields the helmet.

In a new study, scientists took samples of feathers from several places in the boat graves and examined them microscopically to identify what species they came from. The results were short on eider duck feathers, although there were some. The feathers were sourced from a surprising variety of birds including geese, ducks, grouse, crows, sparrows, waders and eagle owls. There is no indication that they were traded from far-away northern climes; they were harvested locally, or from the nearby Baltic coast.

The great variety of species gave the researchers unique insight into the bird fauna in the immediate area in prehistoric times, along with people’s relationship to it.

“The feathers provide a source for gaining new perspectives on the relationship between humans and birds in the past. Archaeological excavations rarely find traces of birds other than those that were used for food,” [researcher Birgitta Berglund] says.

“We also think the choice of feathers in the bedding may hold a deeper, symbolic meaning. It’s exciting.”

Berglund explains that according to Nordic folklore, the type of feathers contained in the bedding of the dying person was important.

“For example, people believed that using feathers from domestic chickens, owls and other birds of prey, pigeons, crows and squirrels would prolong the death struggle. In some Scandinavian areas, goose feathers were considered best to enable the soul to be released from the body. […] The examples show that that feathers in the bedding from Valsgärde most likely also had a deeper meaning than just serving as a filler. “

The study has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports and can be read here.

Roman villa with large mosaic found in Spain

Ancient

The remains of a grand Roman estate with a large floor mosaic has been unearthed in the town of Rus in southern Spain. Found in the El Altillo neighborhood, the villa was in use between the first and fifth centuries, with the bulk of the construction documented thus far dating to the fourth century. The mosaic features motifs like guilloche knots and fleurs des lis in at least three colors.

Tesserae from the mosaics were discovered during recent agricultural activity in an olive grove half a mile from the center of town. They were reported the municipal authorities and the city commissioned archaeologists from the University of Jaén to do an emergency investigation of the site. When a geophysical survey and collection of material on the ground determined the site had significant archaeological potential, exploratory excavations followed.

The immediate goal was to document rooms with mosaic elements that might be in danger from agricultural work and/or looting. The investigation also aimed to map out the structures and uses of the ancient villa, exploring adjacent properties with the permission of the landowners to get a preliminary overview of the site.

The team found that the Roman estate was an expansive one and combined a large private residence with industrial areas. The mosaic covers the floor of the main reception room of the private residence. It was originally 30 feet wide and 60 feet long when intact, which would have made it one of the largest Roman mosaics ever discovered in the southern Iberian peninsula.

Across the property from the residence were production facilities for olive oil and a pottery kiln where roof tiles were made. There is also a burial area that dates to the Late Imperial period.

The city is excited by the prospect of an important archaeological asset attracting tourism, especially one connected to the area’s long tradition of olive oil production. It is working on drawing up new rules and processes to protect the remains that have been unearthed and to continue the excavations, in the future with the aid of volunteers from the community. The city council also hopes to have the site declared an Asset of Cultural Interest, which would give them access to funds to support additional exploration and preservation of the villa and its remains.

Gold foil mask found at Bronze Age Sichuan site

Ancient

More than 500 important artifacts, including a rare gold foil mask, have been unearthed in six newly-discovered sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui Bronze Age archaeological site in Guanghan, Sichuan, China. The gold mask is incomplete, but more than half of it survives. About 3,000 years old, the mask is large at nine inches wide and 11 inches high, the biggest of its kind ever discovered at the site. It weighs about 280 grams (10 oz) and is 84% pure. Archaeologists estimate that when intact, the mask weighed more than 500 grams, which would have made it not just the largest gold mask ever found, but also the heaviest gold object from the Bronze Age China.

Crammed to the gills with bronze sculptures, vessels, bells, altars, tools as well as jade and ivory objects, when the first two sacrificial pits were discovered within a month of each other in the summer of 1986, they revealed a previously unknown artistic style of such antiquity that upended the conventional wisdom that the dawn of Chinese art was centered in the Yellow River civilizations. Many of the objects found in the pits bore evidence of burning. Archaeologists believe the pits were used to house the ritual sacrifice of valuable and religiously symbolic objects. They were set alight in the pit and buried.

Artifacts from the Sanxingdui culture date to between 1700 and 1150 B.C. and attest to a highly developed bronze-making culture. The oldest free-standing life-sized bronze sculpture of a human (8’6″) was discovered in one of the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits, as was a stylized bronze tree 13 feet high adorned with birds and flowers. The two pits also contained dozens of bronze masks, several of which were originally adorned with gold foil coverings like the one discovered in the recent excavation of Pit No. 5. Archaeologists hypothesize that the masks may have been mounted on wooden poles or perhaps worn in rituals to represent gods or ancestors.

Sanxingdui is believed to have sat at the heart of the Shu state, which historians know relatively little about due to scant written records. Discoveries made at the site date back to the 12th and 11th centuries BC, and many of the items are now on display at an on-site museum.

The site has revolutionized experts’ understanding of how civilization developed in ancient China. In particular, evidence of a unique Shu culture suggests that the kingdom developed independently of neighboring societies in the Yellow River Valley, which was traditionally considered to be the cradle of Chinese civilization.

The Sanxingdui site has been archaeologically overlooked for decades, but a new push to study the rituals and ceremonies of this Bronze Age culture reopened excavations. These are the first new sacrificial pits found since the first two were unearthed 35 years ago. The third pit emerged on November 2019, and pits 4-8 were discovered from January through May 2020. They are rectangular in shape and range in dimensions from 38 square feet to more than 200 square feet. Archaeologists have excavated four of the pits to the artifact level and the remaining two to the fill layer covering the artifacts. Excavations will continue until the pits are fully explored.

Among the artifacts recovered are more gold ornaments — circles, birds, pieces of gold foil — bronze vessels with intricate anthropomorphic and zoomorphic decorative motifs, bronze masks, bronze trees, jade objects, whole trunks of elephant ivory plus carved ivory objects. Extremely rare bronze finds include a large vessel shaped like an owl and a complete zun, a wide-mouth drinking vessel that was typically cylindrical; this one is square, making it unique among the many exquisite bronzes recovered from Sanxingdui. Its shoulders are adorned with the heads of birds and animals. Another was made in a dragon shape and is unique among known bronze ware types from this period.

Organic remains were also found, including textiles, carbonized rice and seeds. There were fragments of two different kinds of silk: one a large quantity found in the ash layer of the sacrificial pit, so a direct offering that bundles of the highly-prized fabric were ritually burned in the sacrifice, the other found wrapping one of the objects of bronze ware.

Small knight-snail-goat is medieval treasure

Medieval

A silver-gilt praying knight emerging from a snail shell onto a non-equine quadruped, likely a goat, is one of the stand-out pieces of this year’s British Museum annual treasure report on Portable Antiquities Scheme finds. The object is less than an inch long, has flat back and a short rivet which indicates it was mounted to something thin and rigid like a leather belt. It is solid silver and its shaped and molded front is gilded with some wear on the top of the man’s head on the center of the shell.

It was unearthed by a metal detectorist in a field near Pontefract last September. The mount dates between 1200 and 1350, a time when scenes of knights and snails had a burst of popularity in the art of France, Flanders and England. The motif of a knight in combat against a snail and its many variants were common in the margins of illuminated manuscripts from Arthurian tales to psalters. They weren’t references to anything specific in the text, but rather  satirical references to cowardice in a monde renversé (world upside down) style; ie, the little, weak, slow snail treated as a valiant, sometimes even victorious chivalric opponent.

Knights, mounted and on foot, armed to the teeth with swords, lances and bows, charge a snail that faces them with antennae extended. Sometimes a woman begs the knight not to take this terrible risk. Sometimes the knight is on his knees in capitulation before his snail foe. Other variants merge animals and men or feature hybrid animals or animal combatants in place of the knights. The chimeric imagery often evoked snail shell shapes, as in the curled tail of a serpent. The knight-snail-goat has that same elision, where the spirals of the shell are placed where the curled horns of a ram would be.

The Aspremont Psalter-Hours, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia features a marginal illustration of a knight at arms emerging from a snail shell mounted on the back of a dog. The pose and position of the shell over the animal is comparable to the recently-discovered mount, although the knight in the mount has his hands clasped in prayer, not wielding shield and lance. His Norman style helmet is his only armament.