Elegant blue frescoes, work tools emerge at Pompeii

Ancient

The ongoing excavation of Insula 10 of Pompeii’s Regio IX neighborhood has uncovered a room with walls frescoed in an unusual and sublime sky blue. The shade is rarely found in Pompeii’s wide array of frescoes. When it has been found, it was in spaces of great importance.

The walls of the room are painted in the Fourth Style, characterized by subtle ornamentation, fine architectural details and mythological characters. Against the azure background, female figures pose gracefully, their garments blowing in the breeze. Four of the women represent the seasons. Two are allegories of agriculture and pastoralism, the former indicated by a plow, the latter by the pedum, a short staff used by shepherds.

Archaeologists believe the room was a sacrarium, a space dedicated to ritual activities and objects. Niches in each wall painted with vivid red cinnabar likely held devotional statues. It was probably not being actively used for its religious purpose when Vesuvius did what it did in 79 A.D. The house was undergoing construction at the time, and the beautiful blue room was just another storage area. Fifteen transport amphorae were leaning against one wall. Two bronze jugs and lamps were found, and building materials for the renovation. A giant pile of oyster shells was on the threshold, not the detritus of a large lunchtime raw bar, but rather raw material to be chopped up and added to plaster and mortar.

Meanwhile, in the servants quarters of the villa of Civita Giuliana, another exceptional discovery of work tools and supplies shows how the other half lived. There are no glorious frescoes in this small space. This is bare bones construction, and the organic materials it contained are only preserved through the technique of plaster casting.

A bed, a dismantled frame (perhaps from a second bed), baskets, a long coiled rope, pieces of wood leaning against the wall and a saw with a blade all left cavities in the hardened volcanic ash. When the objects decayed, they left a strong imprint of themselves in the ash that had encased them. Archaeologists at Pompeii fill the voids with plaster and recreate the objects in incredible detail.

Medieval game pieces found in lost German castle

Medieval

An excavation at the Burgstein castle site in southern Germany unearthed an exceptional assemblage of medieval game pieces: a chess knight, four flower-shaped tokens and a die, all carved from antler. They date to the 11th or 12th century, which makes them rare surviving pieces from the early decades of when chess took root in Europe.

The progenitor of chess was born in India and from there was introduced to Persia in the 7th century. It was in Persia that it took on characteristic features like “checkmate” (originally “shah mat!” which is Persian for “the king is helpless”) and developed the rule set we recognize today. Chess became a key element of a young noble’s education in Persia, and its educational role in developing the skills of the nobility followed when chess spread to Europe. By the early 12th century, it was so thoroughly established that Petrus Alfonsus, author and physician to Alfonso I, King of Aragon, listed playing chess as one of the seven virtuous disciplines all good knights should learn (the other six are riding, swimming, archery, fencing, hunting and poetry).

The finds were discovered during excavations by the DFG Collaborative Research Centre 1070 Resource Cultures and the [State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Baden-Württemberg] in a previously unknown castle in southern Germany (Baden-Württemberg, Reutlingen district). “They were lying under the debris of a wall where they were lost or hidden in the Middle Ages,” said Dr Michael Kienzle (University of Tübingen). This covering contributed to the exceptionally good surface preservation of the artefacts. “Under the microscope, a typical sheen from holding and moving the pieces can be seen,” explained Dr Flavia Venditti (University of Tübingen).

The wear pattern detectable on the surface of the knight indicates that the piece was lifted and moved the same way it is in chess matches today, evidence that the rules of the game have been consistent for a thousand years. Most well-preserved surviving chess pieces from the Middle Ages date to the 13th century or later, so this grouping gives archaeologists a unique opportunity to study early European chess play.

The eyes and mane of the 4 cm high horse figure are vividly shaped. This elaborate design is typical of particularly high-quality chess pieces from this period. The red paint residues found on the flower-shaped pieces are currently being chemically analyzed.

The finds will be going on public display for the first time at a special exhibition in Pfullinger the weekend of June 15th. They will then be part of the large state exhibition The Hidden Land in Stuttgart starting September 13th.

The knight, die and one of the tokens have been 3D scanned and can now be viewed online.

Lost metal detectorist finds Bronze Age rapier

Ancient, Museums, Treasures

A metal detectorist who got separated from his group and walked to higher ground in the hope of finding them found a Middle Bronze Age hoard instead. John Belgrove paid £20 to join 50 people on this metal detecting rally in Dorset, but when he lost the people he gained the find of a lifetime valued at £17,000 but archaeologically priceless. His detector signaled as he was trudging to high ground, and just eight inches under the surface, he dug up what turned out to be the hilt of a rapier caked in clay. Then he found the blade broken in two sections. Then he found an axe head. Then he found a bangle.

The two-foot long rapier was buried with a palstave axe head and a decorated bracelet in a grave, a unique combination of valuable objects buried as a funerary offering for what must have been a wealthy individual. All three objects date to the Taunton phase (c.1400-1275 B.C.) of the Middle Bronze Age.

The rapier is cast bronze with a copper alloy hilt designed to imitate the wooden hilts of the period. It was broken in three pieces: the end of the blade snapped off and where the blade meets the c-shaped guard broken off in a jagged line. It was deliberately broken before burial. Only two similar examples have been found in Britain, and they are incomplete.

The palstave axe head is made of cast copper alloy and high side flanges and concave edges that flare into a rounded cutting edge. There are marks on the blade that may have been caused by use or in the finishing process.

The bracelet or arm-ring is copper alloy and decorated with a complex incised geometric pattern of transverse bands, herringbone bands and cable-style bands. It is a rare find on its own, and there is no known comparable example of a rapier, palstave and bracelet from the Taunton phase buried together.

The Dorset Museum and Art Gallery was keen to acquire this exceptional grouping and in November of last year, launched a crowdfunding campaign. With donations from the public and grants from non-profit trusts, it was able to raise the £17,000 valuation cost to acquire the Stalbridge Hoard. The hoard arrived at the museum on May 31st, and will undergo conservation and study before going on display.

Elizabeth Selby, director of collections at Dorset Museum, said: “This hoard is incredibly special. The rapier sword is really unusual because of the cast bronze handle. The bracelet decoration was quite unusual as well.

“There aren’t really any comparable objects like the rapier, so to be able to acquire these items is really important for us.

“Finds like this tell us about how people were travelling, meeting and exchanging ideas with others on the continent in the centuries before the Roman invasion.

“There was a farming community there and these people generated enough wealth to be able to barter for or exchange objects that others had made.”

Farmer in Norway finds rare Viking sword

Medieval

A farmer discovered a rare Viking sword while cleaning up a field in his farm in Suldal, Norway. Øyvind Tveitane Lovra and his son were preparing a field that hadn’t been farmed in years for plowing when they picked up an iron object. At first Lovra thought it was some rusty old piece of farm equipment, but when he went to toss it, he realized it was actually the hilt of a sword.

Norwegian law requires that people who find potentially historic objects report them to the county council which then forwards the items to the archaeological museum for assessment. Even fragments must be reported. So Lovra contacted the Rogaland County Council and on Monday, May 27th, two archaeologists went to the farm to collect the piece. They transferred it to the Archaeological Museum of the University of Stavanger, where it was examined in detail by conservator Hege Hollund.

What remains of the sword is just under 15 long. When intact, it would have been twice that length. Despite the thick corrosion crust and the severing of the blade, the sword and hilt are in surprisingly good condition, preserved by the dense clay soil. An X-ray revealed that the sword had what appear to be cross-shaped letters on the blade. That strongly suggests this is one of the rare, highly prized Ulfberht swords that are inlaid with the inscription “+VLFBERHT+,” believed to be the name of the swordsmith.

Ulfberht swords were made in the Rhineland region between the 9th and 11th centuries. They were high quality weapons and an undisputed status symbol among the warriors of the Viking Age. Most of the 170 or so examples that have been discovered were in funerary contexts, buried with their owners. About 45 of them have been found in Norway, and none of them were discovered in Rogaland. This is the first one found in the county.

Archaeologists explored the find site with metal detectors but have made no further discoveries. The sword will be cleaned and conserved to remove the rust layer and get a full look at the sword itself.

Barrel of iron lumps raised from 16th c. shipwreck

Medieval

A wooden barrel full of wrought iron lumps known as osmonds has been raised from a 16th century shipwreck off the Baltic coast of Sweden. The discovery of a large amount of osmond iron is rare, with only three other wrecks known, and this is the only shipwreck ever found in Sweden laden with one of its greatest exports.

On Friday, May 24, the barrel with osmotic iron was lifted out of the water for the first time in nearly 500 years, in front of a mass media gathering. The barrel, which is partially broken and where the load is visible, will now be taken care of by a conservator and further examined. Among other things, they hope to find out what the Osmunds were used for and where they were going when the ship sank.

“Now that the barrel is up, it’s very nice. It was incredibly difficult to get it out and get it off – the barrel is so heavy and [the wreck is at] a great depth,” says museum wreck marine archaeologist Jim Hansson, project manager.

The ship, dubbed the Osmond Wreck after its cargo, was discovered in 2017 by maritime archaeologists from Vrak, Museum of Wrecks, north of Dalarö in the Stockholm archipelago. The wreck was a clinker-built ship of a design characteristic of medieval construction. It was in unusually good condition for a clinker built vessel, its mainmast still standing, all the rigging intact, cargo still in place. It was clear from the first dive that most of the cargo was a rare find: barrels full of fist-sized lumps of iron. Out of the 30 visible barrels at the site, 20 of them contained osmond iron lumps averaging 300 grams each. There were also barrels of tar, ash and butter in the ship’s hold.

Dendrochronological analysis of the wreck’s timbers and the wood of the barrels date the ship’s construction to the 1540s in Stockholm. The deck was repaired around 1553 with wood felled in southern Finland. It did not sail long after the repair, so archaeologists believe it sank in the 1550s or 1560s.

Osmond iron was the first furnace-cast iron produced in Europe, and Sweden was the early center of production. It was one Sweden’s most important exports from the 14th century until 1620 when King Gustavus Adolphus prohibited the export of unfinished iron so he could turn it into field artillery and weapons for Sweden’s new and much stronger military.

Despite the immense significance of osmond iron to Sweden’s industrial and economic history, very little is known about the practicalities of the trade, the ships that were used, the maritime routes, the production process and the quality and composition of the iron itself. Vrak is working with Jernkontoret, the Swedish iron and steel producers’ association, to take full advantage of this unique opportunity to study 16th century iron.

The purpose of the new project is, among other things, to find out more about the cargo’s history: Do all osmunds come from the same place? Is it true that all osmunds should be the same size, as historical sources indicate? Through the salvage, the researchers hope to get many more clues to the early Swedish iron handling and how it worked.