14th c. cog shipwrecks found in Sweden

Medieval

The wrecks of two cogs dating to the middle of the 14th century have been discovered in Varberg, Sweden. The cogs were discovered this spring during an archaeological investigation in advance of a railway tunnel construction. The wooden remains were unearthed from what in the Middle Ages was the shoreline of the town of Getakärr (which charmingly means goat marsh), Varberg’s medieval predecessor. Cogs are rare finds and finding two of them 30 feet apart is unique.

The first Varberg cog is the largest and the best preserved. In fact, it is the best preserved cog ever discovered in Sweden. It consists of almost the entire port side of the ship, about 67 feet long and 16 feet wide, its ballast still in place. The second cog consists of the remains of a hull about 26 feet long and 15 feet wide. Examination of the vessels found that they were built with carvel planking (planks laid side to side creating a smooth surface) on the bottom and clinker built (overlapping planks) on the sides. The planks were sealed with moss and reinforced with crossbeams going all the way through to the exterior of the hull.

Dendrochronological analysis of the first timber samples from both ships has now been completed. The tree-ring analysis found that the wood from Varberg Cog 1 was felled in 1346 somewhere around the Netherlands, Belgium or northeastern France. The wood used to build Varberg Cog 2 was felled between 1355 and 1357 in northern Poland. This suggests they were not local ships, but had come from some distance. It is not yet clear what caused them to sink.

A number of daily use objects left by the crew were found in the excavation, preserved in the waterlogged soil of the shore. Archaeologists unearthed leather shoes, wooden utensils (spoons, bowls), barrel parts, and in Varberg Cog 1, they also found a significant amount of rigging, spare parts and other elements of the ships’ equipment. 

The wrecks have been laser scanned and 3D models created of them. Study of the ships is ongoing and will continue through 2023.

Varberg Cog 1 with ballast:

Varberg Cog 1 with ballast removed:

Varberg Cog 2:

Peru mural that evaded looters’ clutches rediscovered

Ancient

Archaeologists have rediscovered a unique pre-Hispanic mural in Lambayeque, Peru, that was believed to have been destroyed by looters more than a century ago.

The mural was painted on the wall of a temple by the Lambayeque culture (900-1350 A.D.) a thousand or so years ago. A temple was known to exist at the site, but it was covered with dense foliage and had not been explored. At Easter in 1916, it was targeted by huaqueros, looters who dig up temples in Peru looking for saleable artifacts. At that time there was a “tradition” among huaqueros to celebrate Holy Week by sacking the temples of the “gentiles.” They didn’t come across any of the gold and silver artifacts they were hoping for in their looting tunnel, so they decided to just demolish a wall with a vividly colored mural they had exposed with their digging instead. They were stopped in the nick of time by authorities.

Ethnographer Heinrich Brüning, who took thousands of photos of Peruvian antiquities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lived in Lambayeque. When he heard of the new discovery, he photographed the mural and the temple, now dubbed Huaca Pintada after the mural. The thwarted looters decided to take their revenge and destroy the mural anyway. As far as anyone knew, the huaqueros had succeeded in their despicable aims and the only evidence of the mural remaining were Brüning’s pictures and field notebooks.

For a hundred years, those photos were all scholars had when studying the unique iconography of the Huaca Pintada mural. The temple is on private property and the owners did not allow excavations. The family had lived next to the huaca since the 19th century and considered it their duty to care for it. After the disaster with the looters, they were not keen to expose the ancient site any further. In 2018, Swiss archaeologist Sam Ghavami and his Peruvian colleague Christian Cancho managed to persuade the owner to allow them to perform the first archaeological excavation of Huaca Pintada. On October 11th of this year, the third season of digs, the team hit paydirt: a 100-foot wall painted in brilliant red, yellow, white, lucuma (an orangey yellow named after a Peruvian fruit), black, brown and blue.

It turns out the looters had only found a few panels of a far larger mural. It depicts a procession of warriors marching towards a deity with birdlike features. Above the procession is a river carrying fish to the valley. The style of the painting combines elements of the Lambayeque culture and its Moche (100-850 A.D.) ancestors, marking an important transitional phase in northern Peruvian art.

“It’s an exceptional discovery, first of all, because it is rare to unearth wall paintings of such quality in pre-Colombian archeology,” said Sam Ghavami, the Swiss archeologist who led excavations that uncovered the mural in October. […]

The painted images “appear to be inspired by the idea of a sacred hierarchy built around a cult of ancestors and their intimate links with the forces of nature,” said Ghavami.

Barn converted to baths found at Rutland Roman villa

Ancient

The excavation of the Roman villa in Rutland, East Midlands, where the spectacular (and spectacularly bloody) Trojan War mosaic was discovered in 2020, has unearthed a new surprise: a large barn that was converted into residential quarters complete with a three-room bath facility.

The Trojan War mosaic is one of the most important mosaic finds ever made in England and the site was immediately granted protected status. The mosaic itself has been reburied for its protection, but University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) in partnership with Historic England returned to the site this year to expand the excavation and learn more about the villa that houses such a unique example of ancient art from the waning days of Roman rule in England. The information and artifacts gathered will be essential to understanding the full context of the mosaic and ensuring its long-term preservation.

This year the ULAS team used data from a geophysical survey to plan an excavation strategy that would reveal different sections of the villa. They dug a series of trenches down the length of the site, unearthing a huge aisled building approximately 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. Originally a timber barn, the building was rebuilt in stone in the 3rd or 4th century and terraced into the hillside, protecting it from the elements. Archaeologists have discovered evidence of agricultural and industrial production on the eastern end of the building. The western end was a residential space. It was converted to this purpose at some point in its history, the open barn partitioned to create multiple rooms on multiple floors.

On the southern side of the building is a remarkable bath complex with caldarium (steam room), tepidarium (warm room) and frigidarium (cold pool). The tile stacks of the hypocaust underfloor heating are still present, and are also in situ at the base of the walls, meaning that this complex didn’t just have heated floor and pools, but heated walls too. There’s even the base of a water tank attached to the exterior walls, likely a rainwater catchment system collected from the roof of the building.

This year’s excavation also returned to the triclinium, the dining room where the Trojan War mosaic was found in the main building of the villa. The team was able to discover the cause of a slump of the floor on the long side of the room: an old boundary ditch. The villa was built over it and subsidence of the soil caused the floor to sink. Pottery found inside the ditch dates it to the 2nd century, an indication of the age of the site. The excavation revealed that the main building was also a conversion. It too began as an aisled building that was later added to in stages. The triclinium was one of those additions.

The dining room had been built as an extension to the main villa, suggesting that the owners wanted a special area for feasting as they gazed over the Iliad mosaic.

The new excavations also revealed additional mosaics in the corridors leading to the dining room, including one with a kaleidoscopic geometric design.

John Thomas, the deputy director of the University of Leicester archaeological service, said: “It’s difficult to overstate the significance of this Roman villa complex to our understanding of life in late Roman Britain. While previous excavations of individual buildings, or smaller-scale villas, have given us a snapshot, this discovery in Rutland is much more complete and provides a clearer picture of the whole complex.

Original polychrome paint found on Duomo sculptures

Medieval

Restoration of the marble reliefs on the north façade of the Duomo of Florence has revealed original polychrome paint on an exterior sculpture of Madonna and Child with Adoring Angels. The sculptures date to 1359-1360 and are mounted in an arched niche above the Porta dei Cornacchini, the door in the north wall of the cathedral. While the marble in the background is colorful — the Duomo is famous for the white, pink and green marble cladding that gives the cathedral its distinctive look — the sculptures themselves were previously believed to have been left the natural white of the marble.

The marbles of the north façade were in dire need of conservation, having suffered extensive erosion from rainwater runoff, deposits of surface dirt, black sulfurous encrustations and bird poop galore. Since restoration work began in September 2021, experts from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore have cleaned more than 10,000 square feet of marble. The process revealed extensive traces of the paint, including the brown iris of Mary’s left eye, the blue-green color inside her mantle, red on the outside of her mantle and a rich damask pattern on the garment worn by the Christ Child. This is the first time such large sections of polychrome paint have been found on an exterior sculpture of the Duomo. Previous finds were just tiny glimpses — a few dabs of gilding and light blue on other sculptures.

Earlier attempts at restoration did more harm than good to the original colors. A coating of brown oxalate applied directly to the surface of the marble in the 1950s has darkened over the decades, obscuring the traces surviving paint. Conservators removed the layer of fluorosilicate over the oxalate, but decided to keep the oxalate in place because it protects the surface of the marble even as it darkens it.

The museum has said that this sculpture group was most likely not the only one on the Duomo in polychrome, though now they appear to be marble white.

The find has led to the image of the Duomo as one in color, with white, green, and pink on the exteriors and red and gold mosaics on the facade.

“The exciting find of multiple colors of the figures on Porta dei Cornacchini of the Florence cathedral,” said Duomo museum director Timothy Verdon. “It reminds us that Florence at the end of the 14th century and beginning of the 15th was a very colourful city. The cathedral also had painted statues with gilding on the wings of angels and on clothing – thus, a celebration. A celebration that we forgot and are beginning to rediscover.”

See the conservators at work cleaning decades of filth off the sculpture in this video:

 

Gold disc brooch found in 7th c. Basel grave

Medieval

An excavation of the Kleinbasel neighborhood of Basel, Switzerland, has brought to light 15 graves, some of them richly furnished, from an early medieval burial ground. The presence of a burial ground from this period had been known since the 19th century, so a rescue archaeology excavation was undertaken in the area before installation of new utility pipes. Earlier this year the excavation unearthed the 6th century grave of a young girl buried with a dazzling array of about 380 beads. The recent discoveries prove that the cemetery was more densely populated than archaeologists realized.

One of the highlights of the newly-discovered graves is that of an elite young woman who was about 20 years old when she died in the 7th century. The grave was damaged during construction in the early 20th century. The skull is lost, as is the body below the knees, but the riches she was buried with remain. The grave contained a rare gold disc brooch made of a base plate made of a non-ferrous metal that was then topped with gold. The disc was then adorned with gold wire filigree and inlayed with green garnet gemstones and blue glass. The brooch likely held together a cloak, now gone, at her neck. She was also wearing a necklace made of 160 glass, amethyst and amber beads (or had them sewn onto the collar or bodice of her garment). There was also a leather strap decorated with metal crosses that terminates in a large amber pendant. Around her waist was a belt with an iron buckle and a silver tongue. Hanging from the belt was a chatelaine with pierced Roman coins, metal artifacts and a bone comb.

Other notable graves found in the current excavation include a child’s grave containing a large silver inlay belt buckle, metal belt fittings, scissors and a comb, and a stone cist grave containing the skeleton of an adult man. The man’s face bears the unmistakable evidence of violent blow from a sword. Amazingly, the man survived the disfiguring injury as he died after it was fully healed.

Basel was founded as a Celtic oppidium, or fortified settlement, in the 1st century B.C. The Romans built a military camp on the site of the settlement and by the end of the 1st century A.D., it was absorbed into the Roman province of Germania Superior. Roman control weakened in the 3rd century, but the troops along the Rhine managed to repel invasions from the Germanic Alemanni confederation several times in the 4th century. The Alemanni finally won around 406 A.D., settling throughout the Swiss Plateau. They and the Franks after them occupied the old Roman castle and the town’s fortunes were revived. It was minting its own coins in the 7th century and was made a bishopric in the 8th. The Roman castle was converted into Basel’s first cathedral. What is today the Kleinbasel area was the castle/cathedral hill, the nucleus of the early medieval settlement.