90-year-old British train container found in Belgium

A 90-year-old train container of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) has been unearthed in Antwerp, Belgium. The carriage was discovered in an excavation along the route of the Oosterweel Link, a project to complete the R1 Antwerp Ring Road by connecting the highway with tunnels under the Scheldt River and Albert Canal. It had been buried in the Noordkasteel, a 19th century fortress overlooking the Scheldt that was converted into a recreational park in 1934.

The wagon was placed on a concrete slab embedded into the embankment filled with sandy soil. Nobody knows why it ended up being buried in Antwerp or when.

In the early 19th century, simple square boxes were used in England for rail transport. Railroad companies quickly switched to standardized containers that were easier to load and unload.

The first model of LNER (London North Eastern Railway), one of the four English railway companies, was painted reddish brown around 1930. A few years later this color changed to the characteristic blue. The red container was only in use for a few years, which makes this find very rare.

The number BK769 identifies it as a furniture container with a capacity of four imperial tons (8960 lbs) built in 1935 or 1936. Like a moving pod today, the container was designed to be loaded onto trucks or flat train wagons to move furniture from house to house. This was the only known surviving example of the red oxide LNER moving container.

I say “was,” because unfortunately the container did not survive excavation. The wooden walls were too unstable to remain standing when the soil was dug away. Recovery proved impossible and the walls collapsed. The box all but disintegrated.

Warring States cemetery with chariot burial found in central China

A large cemetery from the Warring States Period (475–221 B.C.) has been discovered in Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, central China, with finely furnished graves and one chariot burial.

Archaeologists from the Xiangyang Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology discovered the Baizhuang Cemetery in an excavation associated with an infrastructure project in June and July 2023. Excavations resumed in November 2023 in collaboration with the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and after a comprehensive exploration of the site, 176 tombs were unearthed. All but two of them were earthen pit tombs from the Warring States Period. The two exceptions date to the Han Dynasty (202 B.C. – 9 A.D., 25–220 A.D.).

Most of the Warring States tombs, 165 of them, are small pits between and six and eight feet long and 1.5 and six feet wide. Nine of them are significantly larger and have sloped passageways leading into them. The three largest (dubbed M1, M2 and M3) are between 31 and 34 feet long, including passageways, and between 17 and 21 feet wide.

M3 and M4 once contained wood coffins that have decayed leaving only blue-gray marks in the earthen platforms attesting to their presence, but the tombs are furnished with ample bronze grave goods. M3 contained 11 pieces of metalware, including bronze tripods, pots, boats, horse bits, swords, spears and spoons. M4 had a trio of bronze tripod, pot and boat.

The tombs excavated this time were densely distributed and neatly arranged, and a number of important cultural relics were unearthed. A bronze sword, horse bit, etc. were unearthed from M3, so it is inferred that the owner of the tomb is a male. Based on the size of the M3 tomb, the combination of bronze ritual vessels and the chariot and horse pits, it is speculated that the owner of the tomb should belong to the first-level nobleman. M4’s status is obviously lower than M3, and he may be M3’s spouse. The M1 tomb is the largest in scale. Although no copper ritual vessels were buried with it, not only did it use green paste clay in the tomb, but it also had the largest number of burial objects. The identity of the tomb owner should be close to that of M3.

Just 24 feet northwest of M3, archaeologists found a chariot and horse burial dubbed CHMK1, also from the Warring States Period. The burial contained one wooden cart, now completely decayed, and the partial skeletal remains of two horses. The horses were place on either side of the chariot shaft back-to-back. Archaeologists believe the horses were dead before burial.

In total, more than 500 artifacts were unearthed in the cemetery excavation, most of them pottery. About 40 bronze objects — ritual vessels, swords, spears — were recovered, as were six pieces of wooden daily utensils — combs, wire-winding rods — and jewelry like jade rings.

Remains of 10th c. baptismal font of Ottonian rulers found

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a quatrefoil-shaped baptismal font from the 10th century in the collegiate church of St. Servatii in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the oldest quatrefoil baptismal font north of the Alps, and was likely used in the baptism of Ottonian dynasty rulers and family members.

The base of the font emerged in an excavation of the crypt of the church where members of the Ottonian dynasty, kings of Germany and Holy Roman Emperors (919-1024), were buried. Parts of the crypt predate the current collegiate church which was built in the 11th-12th century, and archaeologists with the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology of Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) have been exploring the 10th century crypt to research, document, stabilize and preserve the structures underground built in the earliest period of development of the church.

The quatrefoil shape was cut into the sandstone in the center of the room. Its walls are lined with plaster, fragments of an earlier floor used as bedding for the font.

The room in which the baptismal font originally stood must have been the lay room of a sacred building. It is ruled out that there was a palatium (prestigious residential building) on ​​site at this time. The baptismal font belonged to a church and also dates from the oldest decades of the Stiftsberg’s medieval history in the Ottonian period, about which little is known so far.

Although the places and dates of death of members of the ruling families are mentioned more frequently in contemporary written sources, information on baptism has actually not survived. This means that the present archaeological find is also an extremely rare structural evidence of the sacrament of baptism, which is important in Christianity and promises the hope of salvation. According to the Roman-Germanic pontifical in the 10th century, unlike today, baptism took place once a year, on Holy Saturday, as a collective baptism of infants or small children by immersion. The candidates for baptism were immersed in the water in the shape of a cross, in the present case in the direction of the quatrefoils, with their heads facing first to the east, then to the north and finally to the south. The baptismal formula “I baptize you in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” was spoken. The ceremony was carried out by candlelight and incense and was accompanied by liturgical songs and litanies. A few days later, on the Saturday before White Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter), the baptismal garment was finally removed again and the water was drained from the pool.

It is conceivable that Duke Henry I of Bavaria (born around 922, died in 955), who attempted to kill his brother, King Otto the Great, in an attack in Quedlinburg at Easter in 941, was baptized at the uncovered location. Mathilde (born 955, died 999), the daughter of Emperor Otto the Great and Empress Adelheid and the first abbess of Quedlinburg Abbey, as well as Adelheid I (born 977; died 1044 in Quedlinburg), the next abbess and daughter of the imperial couple, could also be here Otto II and the Byzantine Theophanu received the first and fundamental sacrament at this point.

Mathilde, born in 955 and died in 999, not only was baptized in the crypt, but was buried there too. Her lead coffin with a gabled roof is in the crypt next to the coffins of her grandparents, including her grandmother and namesake who founded the abbey.

Rare medieval belt loop found in Poland

A rare medieval belt loop used to hang keys or a purse has been discovered near Kamień Pomorski in northwestern Poland. It is one of only about 15 of this type of belt loop known, and the only one of them found in Poland. It was discovered by metal detectorist Damian Tomczyk scanning the area with the approval of local heritage authorities.

The bronze figure is 2.2 inches high and depicts an anthropomorphic figure with hands on hips forming circular divots on the side of the torso. Diagonal, horizontal and vertical cuts on the surface of the chest and waist convey the draping of a tunic typical of the Late Gothic period. A triangular cutout separates the two legs that appear to be clad in hose. The figure stands on a rounded shape with a hole where keys or an alms purse or pouch would have hung. A belt would be threaded through an open rectangular mount on the back.

This type of belt loop was produced in southern Germany, created by Bavarian craftsmen probably in Nuremberg which was a center of bronze work since the 14th century. Indeed, of the surviving examples, 12 of them were found in Germany, most of them in Bavaria.

The finder has donated the artifact to the Kamień Land History Museum which has two late medieval bronze belt loops in its collection, one of them with the similar cross-hatched garment and arm holes. This newly-discovered example is larger and in better condition.

FBI repatriates 22 artifacts looted from Okinawa in WWII

The FBI has returned 22 objects and artworks looted during the Battle of Okinawa after they were discovered in a Massachusetts attic. The artifacts were found by a family when they were going through their father’s personal effects after his death. They figured the painted scrolls, pottery, metal figurines and a hand-drawn map of Okinawa were Asian pieces that might be antiques, so they did some online research and found the painted scrolls listed in the FBI’s National Stolen Art File. The family reached out to the FBI and reported the artifacts as potentially looted cultural property and the FBI Boston Field Office initiated an investigation in January of 2023.

They confirmed that the painted scrolls, map, pottery and metal objects were from the Ryukyu Kingdom, a tributary state of China (1429-1875) and vassal state of Japan (1609-1879) that ruled Okinawa until it was formally annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1879. The painted scrolls depict Ryukyu monarchs and date to the 18th and 19th centuries.

The scrolls were very fragile and had to be unrolled by expert conservators to determine if they were the lost scrolls.

The FBI transported the artifacts from Massachusetts to Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., where the scrolls were unfurled for the first time in many years, revealing portraits of Okinawan royalty in vivid reds, golds, and blue accents.

The FBI compared the scrolls to old black and white photographs taken in the 1940s before they were stolen and identified them as the lost Okinawan paintings. An unsigned, type-written letter found with the collection said they were collected in Okinawa in the last days of World War II. The deceased father was a Word War II veteran, but he never served in the Pacific theater.

[FBI Special Agent Geoffrey] Kelly explained that these artifacts were especially important because they depict Okinawan royalty—and serve as pieces of cultural identity. “A nation’s cultural identity is really summed up in the artifacts and the history,” said Kelly. “This is what makes a culture. And without it, you’re taking away their history. And the surest way to eliminate a culture is to eliminate their past. And so, it’s really important for us as stewards of artifacts and cultural patrimony to make every effort that we can to see that these go back to the civilizations and the cultures in the countries where they belong.”

The National Museum of Asian Art assisted the FBI in ensuring that the artifacts were properly packaged for transport. Colonel Scott DeJesse and U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) 38 G Monuments Men and Women led the effort to secure and transport the artifacts to Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service provided additional support, and FBI legal attaché office in Tokyo was responsible for the handover of the artifacts in Japan. On March 15, 2024, the official handover took place, and Denny Tamaki, the Governor of Okinawa Prefecture, announced the return of the artifacts.