Month: January 2026

Bronze Age tombs with luxury imported goods found in Cyprus

Ancient

Two Bronze Age chamber tombs containing luxury goods have been discovered in Larnaca on the south coast of Cyprus. The objects were imported from all over the Mediterranean and illustrates the relationships between the elite families and the trade networks of the ancient city.

The ancient city of Dromolaxia-Vyzakia, also known as Hala Sultan Tekke after a nearby mosque, was founded around 1650 B.C. on the shore of Larnaca Salt Lake, which at that time was open to the Mediterranean. The city flourished as producer of copper, reaching its greatest extent in the 12th century B.C. with a population of 11,000. Metalworkers sourced raw materials locally from the Troodos Mountains and then exported the processed copper via shipping in the city’s protected harbor. It was a magnet for traders across the Mediterranean. The city was destroyed by fire and permanently abandoned in around 1150 B.C.

The 2025 fieldwork season focused on a section of the extraurban cemetery of the ancient site. Archaeologists unearthed two chamber tombs dating to the 14th century B.C. The ceilings had collapsed in antiquity damaging some of the grave goods, but much of them survived, and they attest to the vast reach of Dromolaxia-Vyzakia’s trade networks.

The tombs yielded a wealth of artefacts, including finely crafted local pottery, tools, and personal adornments. Of particular importance is the impressive range of imported goods, which attest to Hala Sultan Tekke’s active participation in long-distance trade networks. Luxury ceramics arrived from the Greek mainland (predominantly Berbati and Tiryns), Crete and other Aegean islands, while Egypt contributed objects made of ivory and high-quality calcite (alabaster) vessels. Additional imports include the deep-blue semi-precious stone lapis lazuli from Afghanistan (the Sar i-Sang mine), the reddish-brown carnelian from India (the Gujarat mine), and amber (some shaped into beads and even a scarab) from the Baltic region. These exotic items likely reached Cyprus via complex trade routes, often involving intermediary cultures such as the Mycenaean, Egyptian and Mesopotamian.

Pottery from Sardinia’s Nuragic culture echoes previously documented exchanges in which Cypriot copper ingots, specifically oxhide ingots, reached Sardinia, highlighting Cyprus’ pivotal role in the Bronze Age Mediterranean trade.

The tombs contained human remains from multiple generations over a century of use. Older bones show evidence of having been carefully moved to make room for new burials. They were likely family tombs, and the human remains are currently undergoing DNA analysis to elucidate any kinship ties between the deceased. Preliminary analysis of the osteological remains found individuals ranged in age from newborn to adult, but very few of them were older than 40, indicating a low average life expectancy even in such a prosperous town.

In summary, the discoveries at Hala Sultan Tekke reaffirm the city’s significance as a major Late Bronze Age economic and cultural hub. The rich assemblage of imported goods and sophisticated local artefacts found in the tombs suggests they belonged to elite families engaged in copper export and international trade. Preferences for certain foreign goods within specific tombs may even hint at specialised trade roles or the presence of migrant communities within the city.

Tiffany Garden Landscape window in new home at the Met

Modern(ish), Museums

The magnificent triple window by Louis Comfort Tiffany studio of a lush garden landscape, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in late 2023 has been installed in the museum’s American Wing.

The window was designed by Agnes Northrop, one of Tiffany’s premier designers and a pioneer in the landscape style of art glass windows. Northrop and the studio’s workshop of largely female glass cutters known as the “Tiffany Girls” selected, made, cut and composed thousands of pieces of glass, utilizing innovative techniques to create the rich profusion of trees and flowers.

It was commissioned by coal queen Sarah Cochran for Linden Hall, the grand estate she had built in Dawson, Pennsylvania, in 1912. Inspired by Linden Hall’s actual garden, the landscape window depicts a beautiful walled garden full of flowers — hydrangeas, poppies, nasturtiums, foxglove, peonies, hollyhocks — with an elegant fountain in the middle ground against a backdrop of pines and mountains in the distant background.

Last month, the Met posted a fascinating and surprisingly touching video about the installation of this magical masterpiece. You get to see close-up the variety of glass types in the window. The glass conservator’s repair of one piece that had shifted provides a fascinating glimpse into how this thing was put together. The panes in Tiffany landscapes aren’t individually joined with lead came strips or copper foil like traditional stained glass windows are. There’s minimal solder and ultra-thin backing glass. Seeing the delicacy of the construction, it’s amazing that the Garden Landscape window has survived being dismantled into its component panels (nine large and nine smaller ones) and moved at least twice.

The video concludes by showcasing the majestic triple window in its new home in the Charles Engelhard Court of the American Wing. There are several views of the entrance loggia with four columns Tiffany designed for his own home, Laurelton Hall, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The intricate columns with their flowered capitals and geometric mosaic architrave frame the window when viewed from the middle of the courtyard where stands a half-sized variant of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Madison Square Garden bronze statue of Diana.

5,000-year-old inscription displays early Egyptian dominance in Sinai

Ancient

A rock art panel discovered at Wadi Khamila, South Sinai, last year sheds new light on the origins of Egyptian colonization of the region. Dating to around 3000 B.C., the central image of the rock tableau is a striding man with raised arms in a sort of bicep flex posture over a kneeling man with his arms tied behind his back and an arrow in his chest. Behind him is a boat, a symbol of Egyptian rulership.

The southwestern Sinai has some of the earliest images and inscriptions depicting Egyptian military and economic control over a subjugated local population. The earliest named ruler of Egypt, predynastic king of Upper Egypt Iry Hor, features in the inscription of the earliest known smiting scene (32nd century B.C.) found in southwestern Sinai. Egyptian rulers sent regular expeditions to the region to exploit its rich raw material resources in the Pre/Proto and Early Dynastic periods and during the Old Kingdom.

Rock art reliefs referring to the success of the Egyptian expeditions have been previously found at the Wadi Ameyra, Wadi Humur and Maghara sites in the southwestern Sinai. The panel found last year adds a fourth site to the list. It has significant parallels in iconography with the other Egyptian dominance inscriptions.

“The southwest of the Sinai is the region in which we can find economically motivated colonization using images and inscriptions, some of which are over 5,000 years old,” says Egyptologist Prof. Dr. Ludwig Morenz from the University of Bonn. “The motif that has now been discovered is one of the oldest known scenes of killing with an accompanying inscription.” The fear-inducing Egyptian standing in a victor’s pose in front of a kneeling, injured Sinaite depicts the subjugation of the local population.

The inhabitants of the Sinai Peninsula at that time had no writing, no government organization, and were inferior to the Egyptians in socio-cultural terms. The Egyptians advanced into the region in search of natural resources – such as sought-after copper and the gemstone turquoise – and colonized it. “Until now, Wadi Khamila has only been mentioned in research in connection with Nabataean inscriptions that are around 3,000 years younger,” says Morenz. “5,000-year-old evidence of the Egyptians was previously unknown there.”

The Wadi Khamila rock art is accompanied by a short inscription above the central scene. Researchers translate the inscription, which is very early in the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic forms and therefore open to interpretation, as: “(God) Min, ruler of copper ore / the mining region.” Min is mentioned in the Wadi Ameyra rock art inscription too. In the Proto and Early Dynastic periods, Min was the god who dominated the territories outside of the Nile Valley, the patron deity of early Egyptian expeditions to the Sinai. The image of the victor with raised arms may represent the god Min, although he is lacking the deity’s characteristic attributes (phallus, crown), or possibly the Egyptian king.

The research team has published the findings in the journal Blätter Abrahams. It can be read in pdf format here.

Sealed bronze medieval reliquary found in Turkey

Medieval

A rare sealed reliquary cross has been unearthed at the site of ancient Lystra in modern-day Konya, central Turkey. The artifact was found unopened, and is being cleaned and conserved in its original condition to avoid causing irreparable damage to it.

The excavation in the area of the church uncovered graves with metal crosses and jewelry. Several reliquaries were among the finds, and they were all broken, opened, or with only half of it surviving save for one. The intact bronze reliquary cross dates to between the 9th and the 11th centuries. It consists of two covers riveted together permanently. There is no hinge or mechanism to open and close it like a locket. The exterior is decorated with circumpunct (circled dot) and parallel line designs.

Reliquaries held the remains of saints or other sacred artifacts (a piece of the True Cross, a fragment of the veil of Veronica, etc.) and were worn or carried as devotional objects. This one has a suspension mount at the top that suggests it was worn as a necklace. When archaeologists peered inside through a gap, they saw a small piece of a shroud-like textile on top. That fabric could be the relic or it could be covering something else.

Lystra has a very ancient connection to Christianity. In Acts of the Apostles 14:6-18 , Paul and Barnabas heal a paralyzed man and are hailed as Hermes and Zeus incarnate. The crowd is about to sacrifice a bull to them when the two tear off the clothes and insist they are but men come to preach about the One God. Paul visits Lystra again on his second missionary journey, this time with Silas, and meets up with the apostle Timothy before moving on to Macedonia. It had its own homegrown saints too. It became the seat of a bishopric in the 4th century with Saint Amphilochius of Iconium as its first bishop. 

Last year, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a 100-foot-long basilica from late antiquity that was in continuous use until the early Middle Ages. It was richly decorated with gilded mosaics on the ceilings and ornamented walls. Archaeologists believe this was the main church of the city, a basilica of grandeur befitting its status as a bishop’s seat and one of the centers of early Christianity in central Anatolia. The reliquary cross was discovered in the continuing excavation of this church.

Goethe’s amber ant

Ancient, Modern(ish)

German philosopher, poet, novelist, travel writer, government official and all-around polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also an avid natural scientist. He wrote treatises on botany, rediscovered the human premaxillary bone by examining an elephant skull, studied light and color theory and played a central role in developing morphology as a scientific discipline. He amassed huge collections of minerals, animal specimens and other natural objects. At the time of his death in 1832, he left behind the largest private collection of geological and mineralogical specimens in Europe, more than 18,000 objects. Goethe’s entire collection is now housed in the Goethe-Nationalmuseum in Weimar, and many of the specimens are still in the same boxes with the same labels handwritten by the philosopher.

He had about 40 pieces of amber in his collection, classified as a combustible fossil resin. Goethe never made any reference to ancient insects in his or any other amber specimens. His interest in amber was for its optical properties, like a crystal or a prism, as part of his study of color theory. Now, an international team of researchers led by scientists from Friedrich Schiller University Jena have identified three insect inclusions in two of Goethe’s amber specimens. One amber piece contained the remains of two nematoceran black flies in poor condition; the second contained a worker ant in excellent condition.

The ant is a member of the extinct Ctenobethylus goepperti species that lived during the Eocene, ca. 47–34 million years ago. While they are relatively common in Baltic amber, this example is exceptionally well-preserved, giving the research team the opportunity to create a 3D reconstruction of the ant from synchrotron radiation-based micro-computed tomography scans. This revealed two parts of the endoskeleton that had never before been seen in Cenozoic fossil ants.

Amber can preserve biological structure at unparalleled fidelity, and the Goethe collection, preserved through cultural significance rather than scientific design, has now yielded new insights through modern imaging. Our phenomic redefinition of †Ctenobethylus goepperti demonstrates the continued potential and relevance of historical collections for systematic revision and paleobiological interpretation. Through this lens, Goethe’s own epistemological commitment to observation, metamorphosis, and morphological synthesis finds renewed relevance. […]

In a poetic inversion, we now use advanced imaging tools to peer through the same amber Goethe once used to explore vision. While Goethe opposed artificial enhancements of perception in principle, he embraced tools like microscopes and prisms when they aided genuine observation. This study honors that spirit by integrating visual technology with empirical inquiry and highlights the enduring value of historical collections for modern science.