Petra monuments orientated according to celestial events.

During the winter solstice, the sun is filtered into the Monastery at Petra, Jordan, illuminating the podium of a deity. Just at this moment, the silhouette of the mountain opposite draws the head of a lion, a sacred animal. These are examples from a study where researchers from Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias and CSIC (Spain) showed how celestial events influenced the orientation of the great constructions of the Nabataeans.

The movement of the Sun in the skies of Petra determined the way in which the monuments of this and other Natabean cities were erected. This is according to a statistical analysis on the spatial position of their palaces, temples and tombs carried out by scientists from Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and CSIC, Spain, and the University of Perugia (Italy).

Nabataean religion

The results, published by the Nexus Network Journal, indicate that those great buildings were erected bearing in mind the equinoxes, solstices and other astronomical events that determined the Nabataean religion. The Nabataeans prospered in the first century BC and the first century AD in what is now Jordan and neighbouring countries.

“The Nabataean monuments are marvellous laboratories where landscape features and the events of the sun, moon and other stars interact,” Juan Antonio Belmonte, researcher of IAC and coordinator of the study, stressed to SINC.

“The astronomical orientations were often part of an elaborate plan,” he added “and, possibly, a mark of the astral nature of their religion, which showed incredible ‘hierophanies’ or demonstrations of the sacred on monuments related to cultic times and worship“.

Solsticial markers

A clear example is seen in Ad Deir, the Monastery at Petra. During the winter solstice, the light of the setting sun entering through the gate of the monument illuminates the sacred motab. It is a podium where some stone blocks, which represent divinities such as the god Dushara, are placed.

“The effect is spectacular, and would have only been observable during the few days closest to this solstice,” commented Belmonte, who also emphasises how, just in this moment, another curious phenomenon is produced. As observed from the motab itself, the setting of the sun recreates the aspect of the head of a lion, the animal of the Nabataean goddess Al Uzza, on the opposite rocks.

Mathematical calculations also show the astronomical plan that the Urn Tomb follows, another famous monument where king Malichus II is thought to be buried. Its main gate is centred with its environment according to the equinox sunset, when the day equals the night, and the solar rays during the summer and winter solstices establish the two interior corners of the building..

“This amazing set of three alignments within the plan of the tomb, in combination with significant features in the distant horizon can hardly be ascribed to chance,” underlined Belmonte. “We consider that it is a deliberate attempt to convert the hall of the Urn Tomb into a type of time-keeping device“.

When in 446 AD the Christian Bishop Jason converted the Urn Tomb into the Cathedral of Petra, the solsticial markers also served as a reference in determining Christmas Eve (24 December) and St. John the Baptist (24 June), the date on which the monument was consecrated to the new religion.

Source: Past Horizonts

Sardis dig reveals demon trap.

By any measure, the ancient city of Sardis — home of the fabled King Croesus, a name synonymous with gold and vast wealth, and the city where coinage was invented — is an archaeological wonder.

One of the great cities of Antiquity

The ruins of Sardis, in what is now Turkey, have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity from the 7th century BC, when the city was the capital of Lydia, through to the later Greek and Roman occupations.

However, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.

The two deposits each consist of a small pot with a lid, a coin, a group of sharp metal implements and an egg, one of which is intact except for a hole carefully punched into it in antiquity,” explains Will Bruce, a classics graduate student a the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been digging at Sardis for the past six years.

The dig at Sardis is overseen by Nicholas Cahill, a UW-Madison professor of art history. Cahill has directed field research at the site for decades. Both ritual deposits, says Cahill, date from the Roman era and based on the location of the find, date to between AD 70 or 80. The team were excavating below the floor of a first century room, which had been built over the ruins of an earlier building, probably destroyed in a massive earthquake in AD 17. Digging beneath the floor, Bruce and his colleagues first uncovered a thin-walled, near intact jug and close to this, an assemblage of mostly unbroken pottery.

Ritual deposits from the Roman period

Within that assemblage, Bruce began to carefully uncover an inverted bowl, which turned out to be sitting on top of another. The bowls, still filled with dirt, were carefully removed and immediately turned over to conservators who cleaned and dissembled them to find a set of small pointed instruments, a coin with a lion and portrait of Nero, and the intact egg.

“The ritual offerings were dug into pits in the floor, after the room was constructed,” says Cahill. “We know they were renovating the room periodically, because in another part of the space there was a dump of painted wall plaster buried under the floor, presumably in a renovation.”

“The meaning of these deposits is still quite open to interpretation,” notes Cahill, “but burying votive deposits below ground or in a wall was a fairly common practice,” perhaps as a ritual offering to protect the house against demons. Roman literary sources suggest eggs were used in particular rituals – in one case, the egg is used to entice demons inside where they are then magically trapped.

For the archaeologists, part of the intrigue is that similar groups of bowls, needles, coins and eggs were discovered at Sardis more than 100 years ago when the temple of Artemis was excavated by Princeton University archaeologists. “It is an exact parallel to what they found in the early 20th century,” according to Cahill.

Sardis is famous as the place where coinage was invented in the Western world, first using electrum, an alloy of silver and gold, and later of pure gold and silver. Nearby sources of gold made ancient Lydia, and King Croesus, fabulously wealthy. While these Lydian coins are very rare, coins and coin hoards from later Greek and Roman occupiers of Sardis are routinely found.

But the coin found with the egg, says Cahill, seems to be special.

“The coin has a portrait of Nero on the front. The original reverse was hammered flat, and the image of a lion engraved in its place, which is very odd.” Expert numismatists have never seen anything like it. “The image of the lion is important because it is emblematic of the Lydian kings and of their native mother goddess Cybele,”Cahill says.

Cahill comments. “It is most unusual to find such fragile things so perfectly preserved.”

Source: Past Horizonts/

University of Wisconsin-Madison based on an original article by Terry Devitt

6,000-year-old crown found in Dead Sea cave revealed.

The world’s oldest crown, which was famously discovered in 1961 as part of the Nahal Mishar Hoard, along with numerous other treasured artefacts, are to be revealed in New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World as part of the 'Masters of Fire: Copper Age Art from Israel' exhibit. The ancient crown dates back to the Copper Age between 4000–3500 BC, and is just one out of more than 400 artefacts that were recovered in a cave in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea more than half a century ago.  The crown is shaped like a thick ring and features vultures and doors protruding from the top. It is believed that it played a part in burial ceremonies for people of importance at the time.  New York University writes: “An object of enormous power and prestige, the blackened, raggedly cast copper crown from the Nahal Mishmar Hoard greets the visitor to Masters of Fire. The enigmatic protuberances along its rim of vultures and building façades with squarish apertures, and its cylindrical shape, suggest links to the burial practices of the time.” The Nahal Mishmar Hoard was found by archaeologist Pessah Bar-Adon hidden in a natural crevice and wrapped in a straw mat in a cave on the northern side of Nahal Mishmar, which became known as the ‘Cave of Treasures’.  The 442 prized artefacts made from copper, bronze, ivory, and stone include 240 mace heads, 100 sceptres, 5 crowns, powder horns, tools and weapons.

Some of the items from the Nahal Mishmar Hoard. Photo source. Carbon-14 dating of the reed mat in which the objects were wrapped suggests that it dates to at least 3500 B.C. It was in this period that the use of copper became widespread throughout the Levant, attesting to considerable technological developments that parallel major social advances in the region. Some of these objects are like nothing ever seen anywhere else. The round knobs are usually said to be mace heads, but there is no evidence that any of them was ever used in combat. The remaining objects are even more unusual and unique in style, such as the bronze sceptre depicted below. 

Bronze sceptre from the Nahal Mishmar Hoard. Displayed at the Hecht Museum in Haifa. Photo source. The objects in the Nahal Mishmar hoard appear to have been hurriedly collected, leading to the suggestions that the artefacts were the sacred treasures belonging to the abandoned Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi, some twelve kilometres away, which may have been hidden in the cave during a time of emergency. 

Chalcolithic Temple above modern Kibbutz Ein Gedi. Photo credit: Wikipedia Daniel Master, 

Professor of Archaeology at Wheaton College and a member of the curatorial team, said: “The fascinating thing about this period is that a burst of innovation defined the technologies of the ancient world for thousands of years.” 

Jennifer Chi, ISAW Exhibitions Director and Chief Curator, added: “To the modern eye, it's stunning to see how these groups of people, already mastering so many new social systems and technologies, still had the ability to create objects of enduring artistic interest.”

 The purpose and origin of the hoard remains a mystery. 

Featured image: The oldest crown in the world, found in the Nahal Mishmar Hoard. Photo source. 

By April Holloway 

Related Links The Nahal Mishmar Treasure – The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Chalcolithic hoard from Nahal Mishmar, Israel, in context – by P.R.S. Moorey Essays in Ancient Civilization Presented to Helene J. Kantor – by Albert Leonard & Bruce Beyer Williams

Source: Ancient Origins

Uncovering the Ancient Mysteries of Cosma

At once both monumental and obscure, it stands within a visually serene yet ruggedly remote setting. Named after its nearby namesake village of Cosma, nestled in the upper Nepeña Valley of central Peru, it is a relatively unexplored complex that includes three human-made mounds thought by archaeologists to be nearly 3,000 years old. During the summer of 2014, it will become a destination for a small team of archaeologists and students who will, for the first time, begin serious archaeological excavations at the site.

Until now, it has attracted little attention from the scholarly community. But Andean archaeologist Kimberly Munro, who is also a PhD student with Louisiana State University, hopes to change that.

"I was revisiting prehistoric sites in the upper Nepeña Valley originally surveyed by Richard Daggett and Donald Proulx in the 1970s," says Munro. "These sites were mostly ridge-top occupations and based on Daggett’s report, showed evidence of highland-coastal interaction; a topic of interest for me for my own dissertation research.” A local school principal from the town of Salitre had clued her in to a “large Inca site and a hilltop fortress known as Iglesia Hirca” near Cosma.

On the way to Cosma with some of her archaeological crew to investigate the tip, one site in particular caught Munro’s eye. “There is no public transport up the mountain to the town of Cosma, so we had to hitch a ride with the delivery truck that goes up once a week with the community’s supplies,” she said. “We were riding up on the top of the truck and when it took that last bend in the road before Cosma, I caught a glimpse of Karecoto [the local name of a large mound] for the first time – and honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I knew it wasn’t natural, or Inca, and its massive size and composition was reminiscent of [ancient Peruvian] highland centers. Even though we were in the upper reaches of the coastal valley, we were still in a coastal valley, and this was something different from what we had seen throughout the rest of Nepeña.”

What Munro was looking at was actually one of several ancient sites that, together, bespoke a possible associated complex of structures with beginnings at least during ancient Peru’s “Early Horizon” period (900 – 1 BCE). She knew this after her inspection of the mounds and survey of surface ceramics and other finds at the sites: “From the density of the ceramics, and the different archaeological components I believe Cosma has been continuously occupied since at least the Early Horizon.”

The largest of the three mounds in the complex, Karecoto, is about 250 meters long and 70 meters wide, and features an underground gallery and truncated top. The top is flat, and Munro describes its location as including walls and domestic structures surrounded by what appear to be prehistoric canals. About 600 meters south of the large mound and across a ravine is a smaller mound, known as Ashipucoto, featuring signs of exposed architecture at its top due to looting. Above Ashipucototo the south is a ridgeline that supports what is interpreted as the domestic area of the site and, following the ridgeline about 1,000 meters up is an Inca occupation known as Caja Rumi, which features large boulders, more ancient terraces, and more domestic walls and architecture. Finally, perched atop an opposite ridge overlooking Karecoto and the village of Cosma is the third mound, and Iglesia Hirca, the hilltop fortress. All three mounds, excluding the Inca occupation, are tentatively dated by Munro to the Early Horizon Period.

The Nepeña river, Nepeña valley, and the Cosma location (right of center) in this image, with map inset showing Cosma location within the Caceres District, Department of Ancash, central Peru.Image credit Kimberly Munro. 

The Karecoto and Ashipucoto mounds labeled within the research area. Photo credit Kimberly Munro. 

Photo illustrating the mound portion and the built-up platform. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.

Interior of the Karecoto structure gallery. Photo credit Kimbery Munro.

Project Director Kimberly Munro explores the gallery (tunnel). Said Munro: "Exploring the gallery was surreal. It was clearly looted and cleaned out to be exposed within the mound like that….but it was obvious no one had been inside in some time. I was already overwhelmed by the size of the mound looming before us, but I wasn’t prepared to see the exposed tunnel......"   Photo credit David Chicoine. 

Wall remains of Iglesia Hirca, the hilltop fortress. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.  

Carved boulder at Caja Rumi. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.

For Munro, the site complex holds enormous potential for shedding light on the social, cultural, and economic/trade interactions of the ancient communities that dotted the regions between the coastal communities and those of the highlands. “For those studying interactions,” says Munro, “many people have looked at opposite ends of the interaction spectrum, either the highlands, or the coast. Not as many have looked at these in-between zones, or buffer communities. The hilltop fortress is reminiscent as well of the monumental sites found in the Moro pocket, lower down in the upper-Nepeña Valley. Chullpas and the Inca carved stones also date us to the Middle and Late Horizons, respectively. It appears we may have a full sequence, and being able to understand how these people plugged into the changing networks or big power players through time will be an important research question for the excavations.”

To find the answers, Munro will be co-directing an initial research team with Jeisen Navarro Vega of the Registro Nacional de Arqueologos del Peru (RNA) to conduct test excavations at the Karecoto and Ashipucoto mounds and a ridge-top site, along with total station mapping of the overall Cosma site complex. The effort won’t be easy. There is no public transportation to the site. To get there, one must catch a ride on a once-a-week delivery truck, or hike 5 hours from the next closest town of Jimbe. This presents a logistical challenge for packing in tools or supplies. Secondly, components of the site are situated on high ridge-tops about 1,000 meters above Cosma, and the sites of Iglesia Hirca and Caja Rumi alone are a three-hour hike from the town. Moreover, the sites are overgrown with trees, bushes, and tall cacti, requiring the team to first clear the vegetation before mapping and excavations can begin.

Another challenge will be related to the community of Cosma, itself. There is electricity, but no running water. The team will need to find ways to maintain an adequate amount of drinking water and, in the longer term, build showers and latrines.

“I also question how the project and our presence will fit into the community dynamics,” Munro worries. “Cosma is very small and community oriented, and I hope our presence does not disrupt the current dynamics and relationships in Cosma. These people do not have individual property rights, everything is communally owned and managed. I am curious to see how everyone manages and reacts with us living and working in Cosma.”

The town of Cosma, with the Cordillera Negra mountains in the background. The town has early 18th century Spanish colonial origins. It is listed by the district municipality as being “the oldest town in the department of Ancash." Photo credit Kimberly Munro. 

Source: Popular Archeology

Mayan warrior queens wielded profound power, says researcher

A University of Calgary archaeologist is sharing new evidence to suggest powerful warrior queens in the Mayan civilization were not an anomaly.
According to Kathryn Reese-Taylor, a large contingent of Mayan warrior queens emerged between 600 to 800 AD.
Her research suggests these queens made a profound impact on their society in areas ranging from politics, culture and commerce to warfare blasts through previous ideas surrounding the role of women in Mayan society.
"As I began researching, I noticed the existing literature suggested there was only a few isolated examples of these warrior queens in Mayan society," said Reese-Taylor, an associate professor at the University of Calgary.
"I started to realize that was bogus. There were, in fact, many examples of noble warrior women."
Reese-Taylor began researching the idea in earnest after a 2004 archaeological expedition to the Great Pyramids of Naachtun in the forests of Guatemala — one of the most remote, inaccessible sites of the Mayan world.

There the research team discovered a massive stone pillar depicting a fierce Naachtun queen standing upon a conquered foe and Reese-Taylor says she decided to look for more evidence of Mayan queens from that era.
While researching a book on the topic, she discovered the appearances of such figures spikes dramatically between 600 and 800 AD, with hundreds of examples popping up in that time frame compared to almost nothing in earlier periods.
"It's suddenly this quantum leap in the number of women warriors depicted on these royal monuments," she said. "I began to amass this data and look at why this role might have emerged for women at this time."

Cultural biases blinded earlier research

While research on the warrior queens goes back to the late 19th century, Reese-Taylor says earlier archaeologists simply didn't have enough information — such as the ability to decipher hieroglyphics — to make sense of what they were investigating.
Up until the 1970s, researchers viewed the Maya as peaceful priest scholars who studied time, rather than warriors whose society involved sacrifice.
It's possible researchers in the post-World War era had a cultural desire for the possibility of utopian societies, and molded their understanding of the Mayan world to fulfill that fantasy.
As well, cultural biases may have put blinders on the research.
"In the late 19th and early 20th century, the idea of women as warriors was completely unheard of," Reese-Taylor said. "Women didn't lead battles. Figures like Catherine the Great and Joan of Arc were thought of as the exceptions of history."
Reese-Taylor's research is currently featured in the March 2014 issue of Discover magazine in an article entitled The Power and Glory of the Maya Queens."

Source: CBC News

Ancient Egyptian Soldier's Letter Home Deciphered.

A newly deciphered letter home dating back around 1,800 years reveals the pleas of a young Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion who was serving, probably as a volunteer, in a Roman legion in Europe.

In the letter, written mainly in Greek, Polion tells his family that he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them.

Addressed to his mother (a bread seller), sister and brother, part of it reads: "I pray that you are in good health night and day, and I always make obeisance before all the gods on your behalf. I do not cease writing to you, but you do not have me in mind," it reads. 

"I am worried about you because although you received letters from me often, you never wrote back to me so that I may know how you ..." (Part of the letter hasn't survived.)

Polion says he has written six letters to his family without response, suggesting some sort of family tensions.

"While away in Pannonia I sent (letters) to you, but you treat me so as a stranger," he writes. "I shall obtain leave from the consular (commander), and I shall come to you so that you may know that I am your brother …"

Found in an ancient Egyptian town

The letter was found outside a temple in the Egyptian town of Tebtunis more than a century ago by an archaeological expedition led by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt. They found numerous papyri in the town and did not have time to translate all of them.

Recently Grant Adamson, a doctoral candidate at Rice University, took up the task of translating the papyrus, using infrared images of it, a technology that makes part of the text more legible. His translation was published recently in the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.

Adamson isn't sure if the soldier's family responded to his pleas, or if Polion got leave to see them (it's unlikely), but it appears this letter did arrive home.

"I tend to think so. The letter was addressed to and mentions Egyptians, and it was found outside the temple of the Roman-period town of Tebtunis in the Fayyum not far from the Nile River," Adamson wrote in an email to Live Science.

Polion, who lived at a time when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, was part of the legio II Adiutrix legion stationed in Pannonia Inferior (around modern-day Hungary)

He may have volunteered for the pay and food legions got. However, that doesn't mean Polion knew that he was going to be posted so far away from home.

"He may have volunteered and left Egypt without knowing where he would be assigned," writes Adamson in the journal article. According to the translation, Polion sent the letter to a military veteran who could forward it to his family.

An ancient soldier, a modern problem

The situation seen in this letter, a young man serving as a volunteer in a military unit far away from home, facing tensions with his family and seeking leave to see them sounds like something that happens in modern-day armed forces.

Although soldiers today have an easier time communicating and traveling back home (Polion would have had to travel for a month or more to reach Tebtunis from his posting in Europe), there are some themes that connect both ancient and modern soldiers, Adamson said.

"I think that some aspects of military service belong to a common experience across ancient and modern civilizations — part of our human experience in general really. Things like worry and homesickness."

The letter is now in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

Source: LiveScience

Shamanic figurine guarding shaft tomb discovered in Colima.

A shaft tomb containing skeletal remains along with a rich assemblage of grave goods, has been discovered in a later cemetery in the state of Colima, Mexico by researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Archaeologist Marco Zavaleta Lucido explained, shaft tombs such as this are targeted by looters because of the beauty of the materials deposited within them. The excavators have produced a detailed record of this burial area which unusually, was found intact.

Shaman sculpture

The sculpture of a long faced shaman holding a blowpipe is the guardian of the shaft tomb sealed up more than 1500 years ago.

In April 2013 archaeologists uncovered and began excavating a cemetery that contained the remains of 35 adults, of both male and females, as well as three infants, all within stone cists dating to what is called the Colima phase, AD400 to 600. Near these burials Marco Zavaleta located a sealed vertical shaft of 1.50 metres square, which represented the entrance to the tomb, dating to a slightly earlier date (AD0-500).

Within this probably family tomb chamber they found the skeletal remains of one or two individuals placed deliberately on top of  another older internment. Once the archaeologists had excavated to floor level, they found another individual lying on its back.

Source: Past Horizonts / INAH