An excavation in Pacé, northwestern France, has uncovered remains from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, including a Roman road and an exceptional gold intaglio ring lost by a traveler on it. The site was excavated by National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) in advance of development, revealing

The ring has an intricate chased gold setting and a nicolo intaglio engraved with a figure of Venus Victrix (Venus the Conqueress, the Roman goddess of Love after she wins the golden apple and triumphs over Juno and Minerva in the Judgment of Paris). A Nicolo intaglio is made with onyx, a variety of chalcedony with parallel bands, usually of black and/or white. Nicolo cameos are carved so that the black layer is the background while the thin top layer takes on a bluish hue. The carved out areas then expose the black for a striking dark mode look.

It is an opulent piece, far more elaborate in the decoration of the gold than a similar ring in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s a little later that the Met’s ring, dating to between the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

The ring was discovered on an ancient road about 26 feet wide with ditches on each side. It was not paved, but topped with a gravel layer of quartz pebbles. Traces of ruts from ancient wheeled conveyances are still visible on the surface. Archaeologists believe it served with a nearby settlement that was occupied between the 2nd and 4th centuries.

That hamlet was revived and expanded between the 5th and 10th centuries, reaching its peak in the 7th and 8th centuries. It consisted of a series of rectangular plots surrounded by ditches and connected by paths. Some are dwellings with walls of earth and wood, others agricultural plots, pastures, underground grain silos, hearths, ovens and water reservoirs. Archaeologists found evidence that that the oven pits were used not just to cook food, but also to process crops, ie, to roast and dry grains. The community grew organically, starting with one farm working a couple of plots, which then attracted new settlers who built additional plots with different purposes.

The artifacts associated with the hamlet are primarily ceramics (tableware, cooking vessels, storage vessels), but one exceptional find was a mini-hoard of a dozen Carolingian denarii from the 9th-10th centuries. The residents also reused ancient materials like terracotta roof tiles and bricks for various purposes in the plots. Fragments of cob with traces of adobe and plaster still attached will be analyzed for information about construction techniques of the era.

An excavation of the ancient Achaean city of Rhypes near Aigio, western Greece, has discovered a heroön (a shrine dedicated to the cult worship of a hero from Greek and Roman mythology) with Pentelic marble lions and tombs containing gold jewelry.

The ancient Greek city-state of Rhypes dates back at least to the Archaic Period, but its roots may go back even further. This season’s excavation unearthed architectural remains and pottery from the 8th century B.C., and according to ancient sources (who were relying on legendary traditional accounts), Myscellus of Rhypes left the well-established and powerful polis to found the colony of Croton in southern Italy in 710 B.C.

In the 5th century B.C., Rhypes was one of the original twelve cities of the Achaean League. The league was dissolved after the earthquake that destroyed Helike in 373 B.C., and when it was reformed in 280 B.C., Rhypes was no longer a member. The city was razed by Octavian in 30 B.C. during the War of Actium against the supporters of Marc Anthony. Its surviving residents were forcibly removed to nearby Patrae.

This season’s excavation focused on a monumental structure southeast of the temple terrace. Dubbed Building Γ (Gamma), the base of it was hidden under the limestone blocks of its fallen superstructure. The blocks were documented, numbered and removed, exposing the crepidoma (the step foundation of a temple) and stylobate (the continuous base of a row of columns) of its long southern side. The crepidoma is 55 feet long and the H and Z-shaped joints connecting its blocks date it to before 300 B.C.

The surviving architecture indicates that building’s façade consisted of Corinthian half columns (flat on the back) topped with an entablature with a cornice and architrave. A Doric hawksbeak moulding (a convex top and concave underside that meet at a point like the beak of a bird of prey) projected from the ends of the cornice. The ratio of the diameter of the columns to their height is the smallest proportion of Corinthian columns ever recorded.

Under the rubble of the façade, archaeologists found a marble lion in a crouching position on its plinth, a larger crouching lion on a partial plinth, the head of smaller marble lion and the marble head of a youth that was the top part of a funerary stele. They are all carved on Pentelic marble, the highly prized white marble that was used to make the Acropolis. There was also a clay water spout artfully crafted in the shape of lion’s head.

Inside the monument but dating to a later period than the building itself are intact burials in cist tombs and a sarcophagus. These burials contained rich grave goods of exceptional artistic value as well as monetary value. These include a pair of gold earrings with lion heads, a solid earring of a nude winged Eros holding a scepter in his right hand and a wreath in his left, a gold necklace whose terminals are solid gold lion busts and a gold ring. The people buried in these tombs were individuals of high status and wealth.

The heroön is so exceptional, archaeologists have designed a new five-year excavation program to fully excavate it. The program is now going through the approval process at the Hellenic Culture Ministry.

More than 6,000 scales of armor have been discovered in the tomb Liu He, the Marquis of Haihun, in Nanchang, capital of eastern China’s Jiangxi province. The fish scale armor was made of a lacquered iron, copper and leather. Previous examples of Han Dynasty armor found in tombs were all made from a single material. This is the first armor from the period to be discovered that was made of a composite of multiple materials.

Liu He was the grandson of Emperor Wu of Han and son of the king of Changyi, so not in the direct line of imperial succession. He ascended to his father’s throne after his death in 88 B.C., becoming King of Changyi when he was around four years old. According to later historical sources (supporters of his political opponents), he was a wastrel from teenagerhood, running with a bad crowd and never listening to good advice. The powerful general and regent Huo Guang saw him as a useful idiot when He’s uncle Emperor Zhao died without a son and installed Liu He on the imperial throne. His reign lasted exactly 27 days, from July 18th to August 14th, 74 B.C. He was deposed, the articles of impeachment charging him with 1127 counts of improper conduct,  and stripped of his titles. The next emperor eventually relented, and in 63 B.C. made him Marquis of Haihun which had the marked advantage of sending him far from the capital. He died in 59 B.C.

His tomb was discovered in 2011, a rapid rescue excavation in response to a report of looters having hit a rich vein of archaeological material. It is the largest and best preserved Western Han tomb ever found, and in the years of excavations since its discovery, more than 20,000 artifacts have been recovered, including two million bronze coins, the largest amount of gold ever found in a Han tomb, bronze goose-shaped lamps, two lacquer screens, one of with the earliest known portrait of Confucius, 12 shields, 5,200 wooden tablets and bamboo slips containing writings ranging from poetry, the Analects of Confucius and historical chronicles to a divination manual and a game manual.

The tomb is so dense with grave goods that it is still undergoing excavation and the objects that have been recovered are still in the process of investigation and conservation. The scale armor was found two years ago in the armory room in the west part of the outer chamber of the tomb. It was in a large pile with numerous swords. Rising groundwater from Poyang Lake posed a threat to the metals and organic materials in the armor, so the entire pile was removed in a soil block for excavation in laboratory conditions at the Nanchang Museum of the Han Dynasty Haihunhou State Ruins.

In the two years of laboratory excavation, the archaeological team has sorted and counted almost 7,000 individual scales of armor. Traces of lacquer found indicate the armor and swords were stored together in large lacquer boxes which decayed over time leaving behind their contents.

Bai Rongjin, a research fellow with the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that “the smallest armor piece was only 1 centimeter wide and 0.2 centimeters thick.” […]

Usually, armor pieces measure between 4-10 centimeters. Even the exquisite iron armors pieces unearthed from the Western Han (206 BC-25 AD) tombs of Prince Liu Sheng, measured 2-3 centimeters in width. The presence of smaller armor pieces indicates that more armor pieces were needed to make the armor, and that the forging process was a more refined one, explained Bai.

A rescue archaeology excavation in the town of Endingen in southwest Germany on the border with France has uncovered an early Celtic burial ground that is unique for the region. It is a type of an Iron Age cemetery known as a grave garden, a planned burial site delimited by a perimeter trench 50 by 50 feet square. The grave goods date the burial ground to the Early La Tène period, ca. 450-250 B.C.

The State Office for Monument Preservation (LAD) employed archaeologists to explore the site of an industrial estate that is slated for expansion. Between April and July of this year, a total of 18 individuals were found buried in 17 elliptical or rectangular grave pits. They were grouped around a central grave that contained the remains of two people. One of the burials was just outside the grave garden perimeter; one was dug into the perimeter trench.

Osteological examination of the skeletal remains found that at least eight of the deceased were adults and about half of the rest were young adults and the other half children. The younger individuals were intentionally grouped by age in the grave garden, with sections dedicated to the young adults and to the children.

Most of the graves had been looted in antiquity, so over 60% of the burials were disturbed with no grave goods left behind. Notable artifacts found in the unlooted graves include a bronze brooch with coral inlay, bronze bracelets, a bracelet made of caustobiolite (a combustible rock of organic origin), a silver finger ring and two hollow bronze anklets.

Grave gardens with clear enclosure systems are not unusual in late Iron Age and early Roman contexts. “The early Celtic grave garden from Endingen is, however, unique for Baden-Württemberg; not least because of the good preservation of the body burials,” said [LAD archaeologist Marcel] El-Kassem. From neighboring Alsace, only one contemporary, much smaller grave garden with just two burials is currently known.

The evaluation of the Endingen grave complex, in particular anthropological and additional bioarchaeological investigations, will enable statements to be made about the age at death, gender, origin, family relationships, health, illness and eating habits of the buried individuals. In addition, this will provide important information about the early Celtic population on the southern Upper Rhine.

A joint Spanish and Egyptian archaeological mission excavating the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus near Al-Bahansa, 100 miles south of Cairo, has unearthed 52 Ptolemaic-era mummies, 13 of which had gold tongues still in their mouths, and one of which also had gold fingernails. The gold tongues and nails were meant to enhance their speech and gestures to appeal to Osiris and the other gods adjudicating their entry into the afterlife. These are the first golden tongues and nails discovered at the Al-Bahansa site.

Archaeologists from the University of Barcelona and the Institute of the Ancient Middle East have been excavating ancient Oxyrhynchus since 1992. Some of the ritual texts and deities in some of the wall paintings unearthed in this season’s excavation are the first examples of their kind found in the Bahansa Archaeological Region. They are a major new source of information about the religious practices in the area during the Ptolemaic period (305–30 B.C.).

The team discovered a rectangular stone burial shaft that led to a tomb with a vaulted ceiling and three chambers. Some 300 mummies were found side by side in the chambers, evidence of communal burial. Another group of funerary chambers were found in an adjacent burial shaft, one of which was decorated with brightly colored hieroglyphic inscriptions and wall paintings identifying the tomb’s owner as a man named Wen Nefer. The paintings depict Wen Nefer and his family making offerings to deities Anubis, Osiris, Atum, Horus and Thoth. The ceiling is painted with a celestial scene of a white, topless goddess Nut against a blue background surrounded by stars. Sacred boats carry deities including Ra, Khepri and Atum. The chamber also contained four limestone sarcophagi.

A particularly important painted scene features the deceased being embalmed by Anubis. The face of the mummy is coated in a thin but completely opaque layer of shiny gold. The faces of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys in front of and behind the deceased are also painted in gold. Gold-painted faces like these have never been found before at Oxyrhynchus.

One tomb contained the remains of an adult female. It was looted in antiquity shortly after she was buried, but the thieves missed some of the portable treasure. Archaeologists found beads, a headrest amulet, a figurine of the god Horus and two more gold tongues.

Another tomb was still sealed when archaeologists discovered it. It contained a sarcophagus with the mummified remains of an adult male with a gold tongue. The team also found a heart scarab amulet still in situ — a very rare discovery — four canopic jars holding his embalmed organs and 400 pieces of funerary pottery, including amulets, Djed pillars, Wadjet eyes and figurines of deities. The inscriptions on the canopic vessels are currently being studied and translated. They will likely identify the deceased.