Unique two-faced gold ring found in Kraków

Medieval

A gold ring from the 11th or 12th century with an unusual two-faced design has been discovered at Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków. The top of the ring is widened and flattened. It is engraved with two anthropomorphic figures, faces looking away from each other. This is the only example ever discovered of an early medieval Polish ring decorated with figural representations, let alone human faces. The few gold rings from the period that have been found in Poland are either undecorated or ornamented with simple geometric designs.

The ring is 1.5mm thick, 4mm in diameter with a circumference of 57mm. The bottom of the band is broken, but there does not appear to have been a great deal of gold lost. The overall shape and style of the ring is typical of this area of Poland, so it was likely produced locally for an elite member of the Piast dynasty court.

The royal castle on Wawel Hill towers over the historic center of Kraków. The earliest royal residence at the site was built by Mieszko I (r. ca. 960–992), the first king of Poland. He converted to Christianity in 966 and eight years after his death the first cathedral in Poland was built next to the royal castle on Wawel Hill. Polish kings would be crowned and buried there for centuries.

The early medieval castle was greatly expanded and modernized into a splendid Renaissance palace by the Jagiellonian dynasty kings (Alexander I, Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus) of the 16th century. The court was moved from Kraków to Warsaw in 1609 and Wawel Castle fell into a slow decline that was violently sped up when it was sacked by Swedish troops during the Deluge campaigns (1648-1667). Come the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, the devastated castle was repurposed as an army barracks for Austrian troops. Poland reclaimed it with its own independence in 1918 when it served both as residence for the head of state and as a museum.

The gold ring was discovered during an archaeological excavation under the Danish Tower, a residential tower on the east wing of the castle built in the late 14th century, but the ring predates construction of the tower. It was in the archaeological layer on top of the remains of an older stone structure that may have been a defensive rampart.

The ring will now undergo metal analysis that may provide more data about the composition and origin of the gold. When the scientific research is complete, the ring will go on display.

First Roman funerary bed found in London

Ancient

Archaeologists have unearthed a vanishingly rare Roman wooden funerary bed in an excavation near the Holborn Viaduct in London. This is the first complete Roman funerary bed found in Britain, preserved in the muddy, waterlogged soil of the former Fleet River in excellent condition for almost 2,000 years. Five wooden coffins from the Roman period were also found at the site. Before this exceptional bonanza, only three Roman wood coffins had ever been discovered in London. Artifacts found with the burials date them to the earliest period of the Roman conquest, ca. 40-80 A.D.

Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) has been excavating the site ahead of new office construction. The Holborn Viaduct area is in central London today, but it was 500 feet west of the walls of ancient Londinium next to the major Roman artery road known as Watling Street. The Roman practice was to bury their dead along roads outside the city walls to keep disease from spreading in the close quarters of urban centers. Archaeologists therefore expected they might find Roman-era burials here, but the profusion of well-preserved wooden coffins and the unique funerary bed and were a most happy surprise.

Carved of high-quality oak, the bed frame has two long side panels, two shorter head and feet panels with sturdy feet at the four corners and cross-slats connected to the sides with pegged joinery. The long sides are just under six feet long. It was found dismantled, taken apart carefully without damaging it at the time of the burial.

It was taken apart before being placed within the grave but may have been used to carry the individual to the burial. We think it was probably intended as a grave good for use in the afterlife. Tombstones from across the Roman empire show carvings of the deceased reclining on a couch or bed and eating as if they were alive.

Skeletal remains found with the bed belonged to an adult male in his late 20s or early 30s. Skeletal remains have also been found with the wooden coffins. There were no other grave goods associated with the bed burial, but several objects have been unearthed from a cremation burial: beads, a glass vial containing a dark substance and an oil lamp decorated with the figure of a defeated gladiator.

The Roman period is not the only one represented at the site. MOLA team has uncovered objects in later layers, including chalk floors and timber wells from a 13th century tannery and an impressive wooden water pipe from the 15th or 16th century that seems to have originally pumped water on a ship. Not long after the wooden pipe was made, another cemetery was built on the site, possibly connected to the church of St Sepulchre which was nearby. Remains of homes, shops and a pub attest to the explosion of new construction after the Great Fire of London in 1666. In the Victorian era, those older structures were demolished and the warehouses built.

Excavation of the site is ongoing and expected to continue through the early part of this year. Meanwhile, the objects recovered will be cleaned, stabilized and conserved. Developers plan to put a selection of the finds on display in the new office building when it opens its doors in 2026.

Temple of Zeus horse frieze raised from seabed off Sicily

Ex Cathedra

A large marble relief believed to have been part of the frieze of the Temple of Zeus in Agrigento, Sicily, has been recovered from the seabed off the coast of the resort town of San Leone two miles south of Agrigento’s famous Valley of the Temples. The relief features a rampant horse, an iconographic representation associated with Zeus whose chariot was drawn by the Four Winds in the form of horses. Its dimensions and composition suggest it was a detail from the timpanum, the relief over the front entrance to the temple.

The Temple of Zeus was erected by the tyrant Theron, ruler of the Greek colony of Acragas (now known as Agrigento) and a large part of Western Sicily from 488 B.C. to 473 B.C. He built the temple after his victory in the Battle of Himera in 480 B.C. Ancient sources note that the timpanum pediment had a pair of prancing horses.

The relief fragment is made of a massive block of Proconnesian marble and is 6.5 feet by 5.2 feet and more than one foot thick. It lay at a depth of 30 feet and had previously been documented as an underwater archaeological artifact, but it had never been closely observed and the record described it as an unfeatured basin. In October 2022, divers explored the object, photographing it extensively and creating a highly detailed 3D photogrammetry composite image. The photographs captured the real significance of the piece, revealing the carving of the horses.

Relief recovered from the seabed. Photo courtesy BCsicilia.Sicily’s Superintendency of the Sea ordered the piece be recovered so that the thick layers of concretions could be cleaned off and its details uncovered. It took three attempts to successfully recover the heavy relief. (Turbulence in the sea foiled the first two attempts.)

Full Avar armor found in grave in Hungary

Medieval

Archaeologists from the Déri Museum have unearthed a complete set of lamellar armor in an Early Avar grave near Ebes, northeastern Hungary. It dates to the first half of the 7th century and is only the second set of Pannonian Avar lamellar armor ever discovered largely intact and in its original position. The first was found in Derecske just 10 miles south of Ebes in 2017.

Believed to have originated from the Eastern Eurasian Steppe, the Pannonian Avar peoples invaded Eastern Europe in the 6th century and established a Khaganate that ruled over the Pannonian Basin until its defeat by Charlemagne’s son Pepin of Italy in 796. Their heavy cavalry was a key element of their success in battle, and lamellar armor was an essential part of the equipment of Pannonian Avar heavy cavalry. They were not military-issue, not uniforms. The officers had them custom-made to fit, and there is a wide range of types, sizes and shapes with different numbers of plates and different laces.

The grave was found in November 2023 during a preliminary excavation of a ten-hectare site on the outskirts of the village of Ebes. Two Avar cemeteries had been discovered earlier in the course of the excavation project, but this grave was solitary, not part of either of the cemeteries. The team first encountered the skeletal remains of a horse. Under the horse bones the set of armor was found, a wooden quiver with arrows, a bow and a sword placed atop the armor. The deceased was not buried wearing the armor, rather it was laid over him, then topped with his weapons and the horse of top of them.

The horse bones were removed in situ. The rest of the grave and its artifact assemblage were removed in a large soil block and transported to the museum for excavation in laboratory conditions to ensure the armor elements stay in their original configuration and so that any organic materials, even traces, can be detected in the soil. The weapons and armor are currently exposed on the surface of the block, but have not been fully recovered.

The meticulous micro-excavation is expected to take several more months. Archaeologists think there may be additional grave goods underneath the deceased that are not yet visible.

19th c. pearl shells unearthed in French Polynesia

Ex Cathedra

An archaeological team from the University of Sydney has discovered pearl shells connected to the French colonization of Polynesia in the 19th century. The three complete pearl shells were found under an iron axe head at the site of missionary school on Aukena, one of the Îles Gambier of French Polynesia. The intact shells are evidence of how the missionaries trained schoolboys to process saltwater oysters for export.

In collaboration with members of the local cultural association Te Ana Pouga Magareva, the team excavated priests houses and a boy’s school associated with missionary churches on the islands of Aukena and Akamaru. At six different sites excavated in October and November 2023, the team unearthed more than 1,500 objects from daily use items — plates, bowls — to consumables — medications, alcohol — and remains from meals of fish, bird and shellfish.

The richest trove of finds came from the priests’ house at the Church of Notre Dame de la Païx at Akamaru. Hundreds of fragments of glass were recovered at the site, equating to dozens of bottles of gin, champagne and wine, as well as perfume and medicine imported from France, Britain, and the Netherlands.

Another distinctive find was hundreds of complete and fragmented pearl shells (from the Pinctada genus), which were cultivated to be worked into objects like buttons and decorative inlay, offering a glimpse into the island’s former pearl shell industry. […]

Traditionally, in French Polynesia, pearl shells were used for fishing lures, tattooing needles, pendants and figurines. By the 1840s, they were harvested en masse and exported around the world. The missionary endeavour in Mangareva was supported by Polynesian people cultivating and preparing thousands of tonnes of the valuable shells.

The iron axe and oyster shells found at the boys’ school on Aukena indicate the children in the school were being trained not just to make saleable finished pearl shell goods for export, but to farm the oysters, raise them to useable size, harvest and process them.

Excavations at Akamaru, Aukena and Mangareva will continue next year.