Month: January 2022

New study to x-ray Palermo child mummies

Modern(ish)

The first comprehensive study of the mummified bodies of children in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, will shed new light on the lives and deaths of the children of late modern Palermo. The catacombs contain the largest collection of mummified human remains in Europe — at least 1,284 individuals. Of these, 163 are children, including 41 in a single room designated to house children’s remains.

There are written records documenting the dead of Palermo’s Capuchin Catacombs, but they are sparse, often listing only the name and death date of the adults. Past studies of the catacomb’s denizens have revealed unrecorded details — heath, cause of death, profession, social position — about the people laid to rest there from the late 18th to early 20th century. However, this will be the first study to examine the children exclusively.

Researchers will begin by using a portable X-ray machine to scan the remains of the 41 children in the Children’s Room. Fourteen radiographic images will be taken per mummy. The data from the X-rays will allow the research team to create a biological profile of each child — age, sex, any developmental problems they may have suffered, indicators of physical stress and pathologies. This information will be compared with their clothing, placement in the room, funerary objects associated with them and mummification type to find out what children were granted mummification and special placement in Palermo between 1787 and 1880.

With few exceptions, like the famous “sleeping beauty” Rosalia Lombardo who died in 1920, the childrens identities are not documented. The descriptive tags once attached to them or their belongings have been lost. The study hopes to be able to identify the children by cross-referencing their physical characteristics with archival records of the names and death years.

Almost all the research until today has been on the adult mummies, excepting a headline-grabbing examination of Rosalia Lombardo, who died of pneumonia a week shy of her second birthday on 6 December 1920.

Her startlingly complete preservation was investigated a decade ago by Dr Dario Piombino-Mascali, who is working with Squires on the latest project at the catacombs.

He said: “Many of the mummies are a result of natural dehydration. Other mummies were chemically treated. Those chemically treated are normally better preserved.

“Some of them are superbly preserved. Some really look like sleeping children. They are darkened by the time but some of them have got even fake eyes so they seem to be looking at you. They look like tiny little dolls.”

After much planning and COVID-related complications, field work is expected to start this month. The x-rays are expected to take a week to complete.

Objects from Piceni princely grave go on display

Ex Cathedra

Objects recovered from a high-status grave of the Piceni people discovered in Corinaldo, in the central Italian region of Le Marche, have gone on display for the first time. Unearthed in 2018, the princely chariot grave was unusual for the richness of its funerary furnishings and for its location in the north of Le Marche. Other monumental graves of the period found in Le Marche were in the south of the region.

The tomb’s presence was first discovered from the air, during an aerial survey performed as part of a preventive archeology campaign at a site scheduled for construction of a new sports complex. The flyover revealed ring ditches in the vegetation that are typical of large graves of high-ranking individuals in Piceni necropoli. They were likely tumuli (the mounds are now gone) and were ringed by moats.

The excavation unearthed a funerary complex with at least four circular tombs datable to between the 6th and 8th centuries B.C. The large tombs belonged to the elite and were richly furnished with grave goods, as a rule. Inside the central ring was a grave crammed with a mass of objects, including more than 100 ceramic vessels and an iron-wheeled chariot. It dates to the first half of the 7th century B.C.

A selection of 12 objects from the first batch of finds has now gone on temporary display in Corinaldo’s public art gallery. The artifacts were chosen as representations from two significant aspects of the lifestyle of the Piceni rich and famous: banqueting and war. Items on display include drinking vessels, skewers and andirons used to spit and cook meat, a bronze helmet, bronze greaves and one of two iron wheels from the chariot.

These are twelve pieces that best express the most representative ideological components of the trousseau and its multiplicity of meanings: a helmet and a greaves celebrate the dimension of political and military power, the chariot symbolizes land ownership, the funeral banquet ceremony is represented. from containers to accommodate and pour food and drinks, and the meat sacrifice with the practices of cutting and cooking dedicated animal meats is evoked by the ax, skewers and andirons.

The exhibition therefore aims to tell the public about this important archaeological discovery , making known even to non-specialists all the methodologies adopted and the long and laborious work that hides behind an excavation, paying homage to the local community which has always shown a profound interest and cultural involvement, in the hope that the project will merge into a permanent museum.

Bronze Age stone game board found in Oman

Ancient

A rare game board carved into stone has been discovered at a Bronze Age archaeological site near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in Oman.

Archaeologists from the University of Warsaw’s Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA UW) in collaboration with Oman’s Ministry of Heritage and Tourism are excavating the Qumayrah Valley in the mountains of northern Oman to explore the remains of Bronze Age and Iron Age campsites, graves, dwellings and tower structures were identified there in previous surveys. The most recent fieldwork season, which concluded in December, unearthed a large building from the Umm an-Nar period (2500-2000 B.C.). Inside one of its rooms was the stone game board.

The board was engraved with a rectangular grid of two rows of seven surviving columns. Inside each square of the grid is a shallow cup-hole style depression. The stone is broken at one end, damaging the seventh square on the top row. Games boards of this type have been found at Bronze Age sites in India, Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean. They are extremely rare, and usually found at important economic centers.

“Ayn Bani Saidah is strategically located at a junction of routes connecting Bat in the south, Buraimi and Al-Ayn in the north, and the sea coast near Sohar in the east. Along this route there are some major sites from the Umm an-Nar period. So we hoped that also our site will be in the same league,” explains [PCMA UW archaeologist] Prof. Bieliński.

Latest discoveries prove the archaeologists right. “The settlement is exceptional for including at least four towers: three round ones and an angular one. One of the round towers had not been visible on the surface despite its large size of up to 20 m in diameter. It was only discovered during excavations,” says Dr. Agnieszka Pieńkowska of the PCMA UW who is analyzing the Bronze Age remains within the project. “The function of these prominent structures present at many Umm an-Nar sites still needs to be explained,” she adds.

But new discoveries have also been made in other Bronze Age buildings. “We finally found proof of copper working at the site, as well as some copper objects. This shows that our settlement participated in the lucrative copper trade for which Oman was famous at that time, with mentions of Omani copper present in the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia,” says Prof. Bieliński.

Pompeii horse skeleton restored after decades of neglect

Ancient

The skeleton of a horse found at Pompeii in 1938 that was damaged by being on mounted display at the site is being restored. The horse was unearthed by archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri, director of Pompeii from 1924 until 1961, in an area south Via dell’Abbondanza believed to have been a stable. The excavation revealed a small square masonry structure, likely a manger. A little ways away the skull of an equine emerged, followed by the neck and vertebrae. Beneath them, the rest of the body — ribs and legs — were found. It was a horse 4’5″ at the withers, which was used to haul goods.

The approach taken to such discoveries at the time was the display them in the original context where they were found, in keeping with the “museumization” effort to convert the archaeological site into one big open-air museum. The horse skeleton was therefore mounted in a standing position on a metal armature. It was left in place and neglected for decades. Some of the bones have degraded and the metal support oxidized, staining the bones in contact with it.

Modern technology will help remedy these historic curatorial errors. The skeleton has already been laser scanned to create a complete 3D model. The model will then be used as a guide for the skeleton to be disassembled so the bones can be restored, cleaned and stabilized. Missing parts will, if possible, be 3D printed and put in place. The entire horse will then be reassembled in a scientifically correct position on a new armature made of new materials better suited to the microclimate.

Perhaps the coolest part of the plan is the creation of a 3D-printed tactile model of the horse for the visually impaired. Visitors will be able to explore the model through touch, with accompanying explanations in Braille.

Here’s a timelapse video of the skeleton being scanned and of the early 3D model.

Stick with Norse and Latin runes found in Oslo

Medieval

The excavation of the Medieval Park in Oslo where the falconer figurine was discovered last month has unearthed two more rare artifacts: a large bone inscribed with Norse runes, and a stick with runic text in Norse on one side and Latin on the other.

The bone is from a large domesticated mammal (probably a cow or a horse) and is believed to be rib. It is carved on one side with 13 clearly visible runes. The other side is also carved with runes, but they are worn and difficult to read. It has not been radiocarbon dated yet. Comparable rune bones date to between 1100 and 1350.

The rune stick is flat and has writing on both long sides and one edge. It is broken at both ends so is likely missing some of the text. The grain and damage to the wood makes the runes that have survived challenging to interpret.

The legible text of both pieces has been interpreted by Runologist Kristel Zilmer from the Cultural History Museum, University of Oslo. The bone’s runes read “basmarþærbæin,” which could be a name or nickname. It could also be a self-reference, as “bæin” means bone in Old Scandinavian, so the word may be describing the object, much like the runes found on a comb in Denmark which spelled out “comb.”

The rune stick features both a prayer and a personal name.

On one of the broad sides, there are two latin words: manus and Domine or Domini.

Manus means hand, and Dominus means lord, or God. The words are found in a known latin prayer: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum”, meaning “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”. These are words traditionally attributed to Jesus as he was crucified.

The short side of the stick may be a continuation of the prayer, Zilmer explains. The first rune is difficult to pin down without a microscope. So far it can be read in different ways. […]

It is possible that it says “it is true”. If so, then the prayer is similar to one found in the Urnes stave church: “Hold thy sacred Lord hand over Brynjolvs spirit. This be true”.

The female name Bryngjerd is also inscribed.

After her name is a damaged section that appears to include the verb “fela” which means both to hide and to surrender. The latter interpretation could suggest that Bryngjerd surrendered her life in the service of God.

The combination of Latin and Norse on the stick is a fine example of the complexity of runic script even among the general population. Latin literacy was not solely the province of the clergy in medieval Norway.

The stick was found in a waste layer while the bone was on the southern end of the site, one of the oldest sections. Dates are difficult to derive from the archaeological context, but comparable finds, the carving style and the use of certain characters point to a date of between 1100 and 1350.