A previously unknown center of Canaanite-era settlement was
recently stumbled upon by a curious electrician on his way to work. A
4,500-year-old copper dagger blade and a collection of intact pottery
containers were discovered by Ahmad Nassar Yassin, a resident of the
northern Israel village of Araba. The items include northern-style 4,500-year-old storage jars and pouring
vessels, as well as the bronze dagger blade, which would have been
attached to a wooden handle. As was typical of the era, the artifacts,
most likely including foodstuffs, were meant to accompany the occupant
of the burial cave on his way to the afterlife.
4,500-year-old artifacts discovered in a
burial cave near Araba in northern Israel. (Nir Distelfeld/Israel
Antiquities Authority)
IMAGE: This drone photograph faces northwest
over the Vedi Fortress site. Cliffs surround and protect much of the
site, with two lines of fortress walls protecting the western approach
to...
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Credit: @The University of Hong Kong
A team of researchers and students from HKU unearthed huge storage
jars, animal bones and fortress walls from 3,000 years ago in Armenia as
they initiated the Ararat Plain Southeast Archaeological Project
(APSAP) during the summer of 2019.
APSAP is a collaborative research project between HKU and the
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Republic of Armenia's
National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Peter J. Cobb, assistant professor in
the Faculties of Education and Arts, directs the project in
collaboration with Artur Petrosyan and Boris Gasparyan of the Armenian
Institute. The Institute's Hayk Azizbekyan helped coordinate all aspects
of the project.
The project, expected to last for at least five years, aims at
understanding human life and mobility in the ancient landscapes of the
Near East. It investigates the area around Vedi, Armenia, at the
southeast edge of the wide and fertile Ararat Plain.
This area has been a contact point between Turkey, Iran (Persia) and
Russia over the past few centuries. It has always been an important
transportation node, including on the famous Silk Road. Today, Armenia
is one of the countries on the Belt and Road initiative.
"The Vedi river valley has formed an important transportation
corridor throughout history and we want to understand how people lived
in and moved through this landscape in the past," said Dr Cobb.
HKU is one of the first universities from East Asia to help lead a
major archaeological excavation in the Near East, a region traditionally
receiving foreign research attention from only European and North
American institutions. The international team this summer consisted of
15 researchers and students from Armenia, mainland China, Hong Kong,
Turkey, and the United States.
The main focus was a major excavation at a site in the middle of the
valley called the Vedi Fortress. The site preserves huge ruined
fortification walls up to four meters high, with a central rectangular
defensive tower. Two long series of fortification walls protected an
inner "keep" of a citadel. The walls date to the Late Bronze and Iron
Ages of 1500-500 BC. The site has been reused multiple times, including
during the Medieval period of 800 years ago.
The research team dug three trenches on the site, making exciting
finds of huge storage jars, walls of buildings, and a variety of
fascinating artifacts including animal bones discarded from meals.
Undergraduate History major Ivi Fung said: "When I was identifying a
pottery fragment in the sieve, I imagined what Bronze Age people put
into the potteries; when I was surprised by a large skeleton of an
animal head, I imagined how they got their food; when I brushed the
stone wall, I imagined whom they were defending against."
Her professor, Dr Cobb, added: "Archaeology allows us to learn about
the daily life of humans in this region as we study everyday items like
the bowls and cups used during meals. The trip also provided chances
for HKU students to have new experiences and adventures. As one example,
some HKU students had never climbed a tree before, but they had an
opportunity in this rural part of the world."
Students from HKU and other universities visited the site from late
May to late July and worked together with Armenian archaeologists. They
hiked to discover new sites, excavated some of them, and studied the
ancient pottery and other objects found at the sites.
IMAGE: A jaw bone used in the study -- from the collections of the Dorset County Museum.
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Credit: Dr Sophy Charlton, University of York
Researchers have found the earliest direct evidence of milk
consumption anywhere in the world in the teeth of prehistoric British
farmers.
The research team, led by archaeologists at the University of York,
identified a milk protein called beta lactoglobulin (BLG) entombed in
the mineralised dental plaque of seven individuals who lived in the
Neolithic period around 6,000 years-ago.
The human dental plaque samples in the study are the oldest to be
analysed for ancient proteins to date globally and the study represents
the earliest identification of the milk whey protein BLG so far.
The Neolithic period in Britain ran from 4,000 to 2,400 cal. BC and
saw the emergence of farming, with the use of domesticated animals such
as cows, sheep, pig and goats, alongside crops such as wheat and barley.
Archaeologists have also discovered evidence of complex cultural
practices, with Neolithic communities building large monumental and
burial sites.
The ancient human remains tested in the study come from three
different Neolithic sites - Hambledon Hill and Hazleton North in the
south of England, and Banbury Lane in the East Midlands. Individuals
from all three sites showed the presence of milk proteins from cows,
sheep or goats, suggesting people were exploiting multiple species for
dairy products.
Dental plaque can offer unique insights into the diets of ancient
people because dietary proteins are entrapped within it when it is
mineralised by components of saliva to form tartar or 'dental calculus'.
Lead author of the study, Dr Sophy Charlton, from the Department of
Archaeology at the University of York, said: "The fact that we found
this protein in the dental calculus of individuals from three different
Neolithic sites may suggest that dairy consumption was a widespread
dietary practice in the past.
"It would be a fascinating avenue for further research to look at
more individuals and see if we can determine whether there are any
patterns as to who was consuming milk in the archaeological past -
perhaps the amount of dairy products consumed or the animals utilised
varied along the lines of sex, gender, age or social standing."
The discovery of milk proteins is particularly interesting as recent
genetic studies suggest that people who lived at this time did not yet
have the ability to digest the lactose in milk. To get around this, the
ancient farmers may have been drinking just small amounts of milk or
processing it into other foodstuffs such as cheese (which removes most
of the lactose), the researchers say.
'Lactase persistence', which allows for the continued consumption of
milk into adulthood, is the result of a genetic mutation in a section
of DNA that controls the activity of the lactase gene. However, the
mechanisms behind how and when we evolved this ability remain a mystery.
Dr Charlton added: "Because drinking any more than very small
amounts of milk would have made people from this period really quite
ill, these early farmers may have been processing milk, perhaps into
foodstuffs such as cheese, to reduce its lactose content."
"Identifying more ancient individuals with evidence of BLG in the
future may provide further insights into milk consumption and processing
in the past, and increase our understanding of how genetics and culture
have interacted to produce lactase persistence."
IMAGE: A soldier's tombstone from Roman-era London
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Credit: Museum of London
Researchers at the University of Bradford have shown a link between
the diet of Roman Britons and their mortality rates for the first time,
overturning a previously-held belief about the quality of the Roman
diet.
Using a new method of analysis, the researchers examined stable
isotope data (the ratios of particular chemicals in human tissue) from
the bone collagen of hundreds of Roman Britons, together with the
individuals' age-of-death estimates and an established mortality model.
The data sample included over 650 individuals from various published archaeological sites throughout England.
The researchers - from institutions including the Museum of London,
Durham University and the University of South Carolina - found that
higher nitrogen isotope ratios in the bones were associated with a
higher risk of mortality, while higher carbon isotope ratios were
associated with a lower risk of mortality.
Romano-British urban archaeological populations are characterised by
higher nitrogen isotope ratios, which have been thought previously to
indicate a better, or high-status, diet. But taking carbon isotope
ratios, as well as death rates, into account showed that the nitrogen
could also be recording long-term nutritional stress, such as
deprivation or starvation.
Differences in sex were also identified by the researchers, with the
data showing that men typically had higher ratios of both isotopes,
indicating a generally higher status diet compared to women.
Dr Julia Beaumont of the University of Bradford said: "Normally
nitrogen and carbon stable isotopes change in the same direction, with
higher ratios of both indicating a better diet such as the consumption
of more meat or marine foods. But if the isotope ratios go in opposite
directions it can indicate that the individual was under long-term
nutritional stress. This was corroborated in our study by the carbon
isotope ratios which went down, rather than up, where higher mortality
was seen."
During nutritional stress, if there is insufficient intake of
protein and calories, nitrogen within the body is recycled to make new
proteins, with a resulting rise in the ratio of nitrogen isotopes in the
body's tissues.
Dr Beaumont added: "Not all people in Roman Britain were
high-status; there was considerable enslavement too and we know slaves
were fed a restricted diet. Our research shows that combining the
carbon and nitrogen isotope data with other information such as
mortality risk is crucial to an accurate understanding of archaeological
dietary studies, and it may be useful to look at existing research with
fresh eyes."
The paper, A new method for investigating the relationship between
diet and mortality: hazard analysis using dietary isotopes is published
in Annals of Human Biology.
IMAGE: The removal of meat from a bone using a replica of the Revadim tiny flake.
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Credit: Prof. Ran Barkai, Tel Aviv University
The Acheulian culture endured in the Levant for over a million years
during the Lower Paleolithic period (1.4 million to 400,000 years ago).
Its use of bifaces or large cutting tools like hand axes and cleavers
is considered a hallmark of its sophistication -- or, some researchers
would argue, the lack thereof.
A new Tel Aviv University-led study published in Nature's Scientific Reports
on September 10 reveals that these early humans also crafted tiny flint
tools out of recycled larger discarded instruments as part of a
comprehensive animal-butchery tool kit. This suggests that the
Acheulians were, in fact, far more sophisticated than previously
believed.
The international team of researchers, led by Dr. Flavia Venditti
and Prof. Ran Barkai of TAU's Department of Archeology and Ancient Near
Eastern Cultures together with colleagues from La Sapienza Rome
University, discovered tiny flint flakes in the Lower Paleolithic Late
Acheulian site of Revadim. In the past, this site yielded various stone
assemblages, including dozens of hand axes, as well as animal remains,
primarily of elephants.
The new research is based on expert analyses of 283 tiny flint items some 300,000-500,000 years old.
"The analysis included microscopic observations of use-wear as well
as organic and inorganic residues," explains Dr. Venditti. "We were
looking for signs of edge damage, striations, polishes, and organic
residue trapped in depressions in the tiny flint flakes, all to
understand what the flakes were used for."
According to the microscopic use signs and organic residue found on
the tiny flakes, these flint specimens were not merely industrial waste
left over from the production of larger tools. In addition, they were
the deliberate product of recycled discarded artifacts and intended for a
specific use.
"For decades, archaeologists did not pay attention to these tiny
flakes. Emphasis was instead focused on large, elaborate hand axes and
other impressive stone tools," says Prof. Barkai. "But we now have solid
evidence proving the vital use of the two-inch flakes."
"We show here for the first time that the tiny tools were
deliberately manufactured from recycled material and played an important
role in the ancient human toolbox and survival strategies," adds Dr.
Venditti.
The Acheulian culture, which was also prevalent in Africa, Europe,
and Asia at the time, was characterized by the standard production of
large impressive stone tools, mainly used in the butchery of the
enormous animals that walked the earth.
"Ancient humans depended on the meat and especially the fat of
animals for their existence and well-being. So the quality butchery of
the large animals and the extraction of every possible calorie was of
paramount importance to them," Prof. Barkai says.
According to the study, which was conducted over the course of three
years, the tiny tools were used at stages of the butchery process that
required precise cutting, such as tendon separation, meat carving and
periosteum removal for marrow acquisition. Some 107 tiny flakes showed
signs of processing animal carcasses. Eleven flakes also revealed
organic and inorganic residues, mainly of bone but also of soft tissue.
Experiments carried out with reproductions of the tools showed that the
small flakes must have been used for delicate tasks, performed in tandem
with larger butchery tools.
"We have an image of ancient humans as bulky, large creatures who
attacked elephants with large stone weapons. They then gobbled as much
of these elephants as they could and went to sleep," Prof. Barkai says.
"In fact, they were much more sophisticated than that. The tiny flakes
acted as surgical tools created and used for delicate cutting of exact
parts of elephants' as well as other animals' carcasses to extract every
possible calorie.
"Nothing was wasted. Discarded stone tools were recycled to produce
new tiny cutting implements. This reflects a refined, accurate,
thoughtful, and environmentally conscious culture. This ecological
awareness allowed ancient humans to thrive for thousands of years."
The seal is inscribed with the name of "Adenyahu Asher Al HaBayit,"
meaning "Adenyahu by Appointment of the House," the most prominent role
in the king's court in the Kingdom of Judea that appears for the first
time on the list of ministries of Solomon.
The one-centimeter-wide bulla, which was used to sign documents,
and dates to the seventh century BCE – the period of the Kingdom of
Judea – bears a term widely used throughout the Bible to describe the
most senior minister serving under kings of Judea or Israel.
"This is the first time this kind of archaeological discovery has
been made in Jerusalem," said Shukron, who conducted the initial
excavations at the foundation stones of the Western Wall north of Silwan on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. "The biblical term 'Asher Al HaBayit'
was the highest ranking ministerial position beneath the king during
reigns of the kings of Judea and Israel, it is undoubtedly of great
significance."
"This tiny bulla has immense meaning to billions of people
worldwide," said Doron Spielman, vice president of the City of David
Foundation, which operates the site where the bulla was discovered. "The
personal signet of a senior official to a biblical king from the First
Temple period. This is another link to a long chain of Jewish history in
Jerusalem that is being uncovered and preserved at the City of David on a daily basis."
According to the City of David Foundation, there are three people
with the name Adoniyahu in the Bible, the most famous being King David’s
son, as mentioned in the Book of Kings.
The site, from the time of King David, was discovered near Kiryat
Gat * According to the Biblical narrative, David found refuge in Ziklag while
fleeing from King Saul. From there he went to Hebron to be anointed as King *
Dozens of complete pottery vessels were found at the site, 3,000 years old
The excavation, which began in 2015 at the site of Khirbet a-Ra‘i
in the Judaean foothills - between Kiryat Gat and Lachish, has proceeded in
cooperation with Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, Head of the Institute of Archaeology
at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities
Authority and Dr. Kyle Keimer and Dr. Gil Davis of Macquarie University in
Sydney, Australia. The excavation was funded by Joey Silver of Jerusalem,
Aron Levy of New Jersey, and the Roth Family and Isaac Wakil both of Sydney.
The excavation has been ongoing for seven seasons with large areas being
exposed - approximately 1,000 sq.m., leading to this new identification for
Ziklag.
The name Ziklag is unusual in the lexicon of names in the Land of
Israel, since it is not local Canaanite-Semitic. It is a Philistine name, given
to the town by an alien population of immigrants from the Aegean. Twelve
different suggestions to identify Ziklag have been put forward, such as Tel
Halif near Kibbutz Lahav, Tel Sera in the Western Negev, Tel Sheva, and others.
However, according to the researchers, none of these sites produced continuous
settlement which included both a Philistine settlement and a settlement from
the era of King David. At Khirbet a-Ra‘i, however, features from both these
populations have been found.
Evidence of a settlement from the Philistine era has been found there, from the
12-11th centuries BC. Spacious, massive stone structures have been uncovered
containing finds typical of the Philistine civilization. Additional finds are foundation
deposits, including bowls and an oil lamp - offerings laid beneath the floors
of the buildings out of a belief that these would bring good fortune in the
construction. Stone and metal tools were also found. Similar finds from this
era were discovered in the past in excavations in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and
Gath--the cities of the Lords of the Philistines.
Above the remains of the Philistine settlement was a rural
settlement from the time of King David, from the early 10th century BC. This
settlement came to an end in an intense fire that destroyed the buildings. Nearly
one hundred complete pottery vessels were found in the various rooms. These
vessels are identical to those found in the contemporary fortified Judaean city
of Khirbet Qeiyafa—identified as biblical Sha‘arayim—in the Judaean foothills.
Carbon 14 tests date the site at Khirbet a-Ra‘i to the time of King David.
The great range of complete vessels is testimony to the interesting
everyday life during the reign of King David. Large quantities of storage jars
were found during the excavation- medium and large-which were used for storing
oil and wine. Jugs and bowls were also found decorated in the style known as “red
slipped and hand burnished,” typical to the period of King David.
Following a regional archaeological study in the Judaean foothills
managed by Professors Garfinkel and Ganor, a picture of the region’s settlement
in the early Monarchic era is emerging: the two sites - Ziklag and Sha‘arayim-are
situated on the western frontier of the kingdom. They are both perched atop
prominent hills, overlooking main routes passing between the Land of the
Philistines and Judea: Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah Valley sits opposite
Philistine Gath, and Khirbet a-Ra‘i, sits opposite Ashkelon. This geographic
description is echoed in King David’s Lament, in which he mourns the death of
King Saul and Jonathan in their battle against the Philistines: “Tell it not in
Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon.”
The underground reservoir dating back to the First Temple in Jerusalem found on the edge of the Temple Mount. (Israel Antiquities Authority, Vladimir Neychin)
At the southern corner of
the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a rare, preserved
cistern from the First Temple period has been found, concealed from view
and unknown to many. The Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered the
cistern seven years ago, but difficult access to the site prevents
public visits. The entranceway is locked and is not included in the
various tour programs sponsored by the City of David and local tour
guides, despite the enormous archaeological importance of the cistern,
whose volume approaches that of a small reservoir.
The discovery of the cistern undermines the long-standing thesis that
during the First Temple period, Jerusalem was sustained from the waters
of the Gihon Spring alone. For five decades, archaeologists have
searched in vain for archaeological evidence to confirm the biblical and
historical testimony woven into a biblical speech of Rab-Shakeh,
commander of Assyrian King Sennacherib’s army. Rab-Shakeh tried to
convince Hezekiah, King of Judah, and the beleaguered inhabitants of
Jerusalem to surrender, saying: “Come out to me; and eat ye every one of
his vine, and every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern [Isaiah 36].”
For many years, archaeologists searched in vain for the cisterns
mentioned by Rab-Shakeh. Many reservoirs were discovered from the Second
Temple period, but none from First Temple days were found. The
prevailing assumption, therefore, was that during First Temple times,
Jerusalem was sustained only by the waters of the Gihon Spring.
The Discovery of the Hidden Water Reservoir
Then in 2012, during the cleaning of the Herodian drainage channels
(under the Herodian Pilgrims’ Road) which stretch from the Shiloah Pool
to the southern wall of the Temple Mount, the hidden water reservoir was
discovered.
Archaeologist Eli Shukron and archaeology Prof. Ronny Reich, who were
responsible for many of the discoveries in the City of David, were
supervising a crew clearing two Second Temple period mikvas
(ritual baths) that were transected by the Herodian drainage channel.
At one point, one of the workers noticed that one of the floor panels
of the drainage channel was wobbling. A closer examination showed that
under the wobbly floor panel was a large empty void.
They brought flashlights, the wobbly rock was moved, and the workers
illuminated the dark emptiness. With a ladder, the workers and Shukron
carefully descended to the floor of the void and found themselves inside
a large public reservoir chiseled into the rock, which was much larger
than any regular water cistern. The reservoir was sealed with
brown-yellow plaster characteristic of the First Temple period. The
discovery offered the first hint of how Jerusalem was provided with
water during the First Temple period.
Today, seven years later, Shukron believes that if they continue
searching, they will find other, similar cisterns from that period. The
biblical descriptions from the Book of Kings about the
construction of the Temple by Solomon describe the “Copper Sea” – a huge
water tank made of copper placed in the Temple courtyard – and the ten
basins that together had the capacity, in today’s terms, of
approximately 120,000 liters (32,000 gallons, 120 cubic meters).
Archaeologist Dr. Tzvika Tzuk and Prof. Shmuel Avitsur, who
separately dealt with ancient Jerusalem’s water needs, offered other
calculations: The first Temple required several dozen cubic meters of
water per day for various purposes or tens of thousands of liters per
day. But the distance between the Gihon Spring and the Temple Mount is
about 800 meters. To take one cubic meter of water (1,000 liters) would
require 13 donkey trips, each carrying approximately 75 liters of water
at a time. Thus, to fill a 100-cubic-meter cistern, 1,300 donkey loads
would be necessary.
Thus, the age-old theory that the Gihon Spring “sustained Jerusalem
alone” during the First Temple period does not stand the test of this
calculation. But with no other findings, the theory lived on for many
years until the discovery of the reservoir from the First Temple Period. The underground reservoir dating back to the First Temple in Jerusalem found on the edge of the Temple Mount. (Israel Antiquities Authority, Vladimir Neychin)
Yet the discovery, published at the time by the Israel Antiquities
Authority and the City of David, has been forgotten. Jerusalem is still
awaiting the discovery of additional cisterns from the First Temple
period to confirm that the city was not sustained “only by the Gihon
Spring.”
I visited the reservoir recently. It is 4.5 meters high, 5.5 meters
wide, and 12 meters in length. The reservoir roof has two openings. The
main one served as the opening from which water was drawn. The second
serves today as an entrance to the reservoir by means of a long iron
ladder, descending to the base. Its capacity is about 250 cubic meters. Charles Warren’s exploration: “Fallen Voussoirs of Robinson’s Arch. Jerusalem” (Palestine Exploration Fund, painting by W. Simpson, 1869)
Similar cisterns that enabled the dating of the reservoir at the foot
of the Temple Mount were discovered in the 1990s in Tel Beer Sheva and
Tel Beit Shemesh. The caverns in those other sites are not symmetrical,
and from their main chamber there are additional branches and rooms. The
reservoir at the foot of the Temple Mount also branches out, possibly
to the east underneath today’s Temple Mount plaza and to an area below
the Islamic Museum. However, this branch is blocked and cannot be
reached.
Israel has no plans to dig on the Temple Mount, but it should be
noted that the area was mapped and inventoried in the nineteenth century
by Charles Warren, who found 49 cisterns and 42 aqueducts that conveyed
water.1 Map prepared by Jerusalem engineer and explorer Ermete Pierotti and published in 1888 posthumously.2
The water reservoirs, cisterns, and aqueducts were also mapped by the
Italian engineer Ermete Pierotti, who was appointed in 1858 as
architect and engineer of Jerusalem by the Ottoman governor. The
position allowed him to explore the city and the Temple Mount, and he
published a controversial book Jerusalem Explored.
First discovered in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds
looking for a lost sheep, the ancient Hebrew texts known as the Dead Sea
Scrolls are some of the most well-preserved ancient written materials
ever found. Now, a study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere elucidates a
unique ancient technology of parchment making and provides potentially
new insights into methods to better preserve these precious historical
documents.
The study focused on one scroll in particular, known as the Temple
Scroll, among the roughly 900 full or partial scrolls found in the years
since that first discovery. The scrolls were, in general, placed in
jars and hidden in 11 caves on the steep hillsides just north of the
Dead Sea, in the region around the ancient settlement of Qumran, which
was destroyed by the Romans about 2,000 years ago. To protect their
religious and cultural heritage from the invaders, members of a sect
called the Essenes hid their precious documents in the caves, often
buried under a few feet of debris and bat guano to help foil looters.
The Temple Scroll is one of the largest (almost 25 feet long) and
best-preserved of all the scrolls, even though its material is the
thinnest of all of them (one-tenth of a millimeter, or roughly 1/250th
of an inch thick). It also has the clearest, whitest writing surface of
all the scrolls. These properties led MIT assistant professor of civil
and environmental engineering and Department of Materials Science and
Engineering faculty fellow in archaeological materials, Admir Masic, to
wonder how the parchment was made.
The results of that study, carried out with former graduate student
Roman Schuetz (now at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science), MIT
graduate student Janille Maragh, and two others, were published today in
the journal Science Advances. They found that the parchment
was processed in an unusual way, using a mixture of salts found in
evaporites -- the material left from the evaporation of brines -- but
one that was different from the typical composition found on other
parchments.
"The Temple Scroll is probably the most beautiful and best preserved
scroll," Masic says. "We had the privilege of studying fragments from
the Israeli museum in Jerusalem called the Shrine of the Book," which
was built specifically to house the Dead Sea Scrolls. One relatively
large fragment from that scroll was the main subject of the new paper.
The fragment, measuring about 2.5 cm (1 inch) across was investigated
using a variety of specialized tools developed by researchers to map, in
high resolution, the detailed chemical composition of relatively large
objects under a microscope.
"We were able to perform large-area, submicron-scale, non-invasive
characterization of the fragment," Masic says -- an integrated approach
that he and co-author of this paper James Weaver, from the Wyss
Institute at Harvard University, have developed for the characterization
of both biological and non-biological materials. "These methods allow
us to maintain the materials of interest under more environmentally
friendly conditions, while we collect hundreds of thousands of different
elemental and chemical spectra across the surface of the sample,
mapping out its compositional variability in extreme detail," Weaver
says.
That fragment, which has escaped any treatment since its discovery
that might have altered its properties, "allowed us to look deeply into
its original composition, revealing the presence of some elements at
completely unexpectedly high concentrations" Masic says.
The elements they discovered included sulfur, sodium, and calcium in
different proportions, spread across the surface of the parchment.
Parchment is made from animal skins that have had all hair and fatty
residues removed by soaking them in a lime solution (from the middle
ages onwards) or through enzymatic and other treatments (in antiquity),
scraping them clean, and then stretching them tight in a frame to dry.
When dried, sometimes the surface was further prepared by rubbing with
salts, as was apparently the case with the Temple Scroll.
The team has not yet been able to assess where the unusual
combination of salts on the Temple Scroll's surface came from, Masic
says. But it's clear that this unusual coating, laced with these salts,
on which the text was written, helped to give this parchment its
unusually bright white surface, and perhaps contributed to its state of
preservation, he says. And the coating's elemental composition does not
match that of the Dead Sea water itself, so it must have been from an
evaporite deposit found somewhere else -- whether nearby or far away,
the researchers can't yet say.
The unique composition of that surface layer demonstrates that the
production process for that parchment was significantly different from
that of other scrolls in the region, Masic says: "This work exemplifies
exactly what my lab is trying to do -- to use modern analytical tools to
uncover secrets of the ancient world".
Understanding the details of this ancient technology could help
provide insights into the culture and society of that time and place,
which played a central role in the history of both Judaism and
Christianity. Among other things, an understanding of the parchment
production and its chemistry could also help to identify forgeries of
supposedly ancient writings.
According to Ira Rabin, one of the paper's co-authors from Hamburg
University in Germany, "this study has far-reaching implications beyond
the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, it shows that at the dawn of
parchment making in the Middle East, several techniques were in use,
which is in stark contrast to the single technique used in the Middle
Ages. The study also shows how to identify the initial treatments, thus
providing historians and conservators with a new set of analytical tools
for classification of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient
parchments."
This information could indeed be crucial in guiding the development
of new preservation strategies for these ancient manuscripts.
Unfortunately, it appears that much of the damage seen in the scrolls
today arose not from their 2,000-plus years in the caves, but from
efforts to soften the scrolls in order to unroll and read them
immediately after their initial discovery, Masic says.
Adding to these existing concerns, the new data now clearly
demonstrate that these unique mineral coatings are also highly
hygroscopic -- they readily absorb any moisture in the air, and then
might quickly begin to degrade the underlying material. These new
results thus further emphasize the need to store the parchments in a
controlled humidity environment at all times. "There could be an
unanticipated sensitivity to even small-scale changes in humidity," he
says. "The point is that we now have evidence for the presence of salts
that might accelerate their degradation. ... These are aspects of
preservation that must be taken into account."
Archaeologists in Israel say they may have discovered the true
location of Emmaus, the Biblical town where Jesus first appeared to two
of his followers after being crucified and resurrected.
Haaretz
reports that researchers found the massive 2,200-year-old walls of a
Hellenistic fortification believed to have been built by the Seleucid
general who defeated Judah the Maccabee, the Jewish leader spoken of in
the Hanukkah story.
Since 2017, a Franco-Israeli team has been excavating a hill
overlooking Jerusalem known as Kiriath Yearim, an area believed to be
where the Ark of the Covenant was kept for 20 years before being taken
to Jerusalem by King David.
Tel Aviv University archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and Thomas
Römer, a professor of biblical studies at the College de France argue
that the hill of Kiriath Yearim and the adjacent town of Abu Ghosh
should be identified as Emmaus.
"The importance of this site, its dominant position over Jerusalem,
was felt again and again through time: in the eighth century B.C.E., and
then again in the Hellenistic period and then again after the First
Jewish Revolt and the sack of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.," Finkelstein told
Haaretz.
Judah the Maccabee, a priest who led a Jewish revolt against the
Seleucid empire, was defeated and killed here in 160 BC by the Seleucid
army led by general Bacchides. Bacchides fortified the towns surrounding
Jerusalem with large walls, including the biblical town of Emmaus.
Finkelstein and Römer believe they may have found the walls built to
fortify Emmaus.
Israeli Archaeologists have discovered an
unusually well-preserved mosaic apparently depicting the miracle of
Jesus feeding the 5,000 on the floor of an early Christian Church
overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
Researchers from the University of Haifa exposed the mosaic during excavations on the so-called "Burnt Church" at the Hippos-Sussita excavation site.
Researchers believe the 6th century church was most likely burned down
during the Sasanian conquest in the 7th century. The fire actually
helped preserve the floor because when the roof burned down, it covered
the mosaic floor in a layer of ash, thus protecting it from being
damaged by the elements over time.
When archaeologists broke through the ash layer, they found a
colorful mosaic depicting images of baskets with loaves and fish, a
miracle that is believed to have occurred close to the Sea of Galilee.
Related
"There can certainly be different explanations to the descriptions of
loaves and fish in the mosaic, but you cannot ignore the similarity to
the description in the New Testament: for example, from the fact that
the New Testament has a description of five loaves in a basket or the
two fish depicted in the apse, as we find in the mosaic", said Dr.
Michael Eisenberg, head of the excavation team in Hippos on behalf of
the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel.
IMAGE: This is a photograph of a red slipped
ware globular pot placed near the head of the skeleton that yielded
ancient DNA. There are lines as well as indentations on...
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Credit: Vasant Shinde / Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute
Researchers have successfully sequenced the first genome of an
individual from the Harappan civilization, also called the Indus Valley
Civilization (IVC). The DNA, which belongs to an individual who lived
four to five millennia ago, suggests that modern people in India are
likely to be largely descended from people of this ancient culture. It
also offers a surprising insight into how farming began in South Asia,
showing that it was not brought by large-scale movement of people from
the Fertile Crescent where farming first arose. Instead, farming started
in South Asia through local hunter-gatherers adopting farming. The
findings appear September 5 in the journal Cell.
"The Harappans were one of the earliest civilizations of the ancient
world and a major source of Indian culture and traditions, and yet it
has been a mystery how they related both to later people as well as to
their contemporaries," says Vasant Shinde, an archaeologist at Deccan
College, Deemed University in Pune, India, and the chief excavator of
the site of Rakhigarhi, who is first author of the study.
The IVC, which at its height from 2600 to 1900 BCE covered a large
swath of northwestern South Asia, was one of the world's first
large-scale urban societies. Roughly contemporary to ancient Egypt and
the ancient civilizations of China and Mesopotamia, it traded across
long distances and developed systematic town planning, elaborate
drainage systems, granaries, and standardization of weights and
measures.
Hot, fluctuating climates like those found in many parts of lowland
South Asia are detrimental to the preservation of DNA. So despite the
importance of the IVC, it has been impossible until now to sequence DNA
of individuals recovered in archaeological sites located in the region.
"Even though there has been success with ancient DNA from many other
places, the difficult preservation conditions mean that studies in South
Asia have been a challenge," says senior author David Reich, a
geneticist at Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, and the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Answering questions about the ancient people of the Indus Valley was
in fact the primary reason Reich founded his own ancient DNA laboratory
in 2013.
In this study, Reich, post-doctoral scientist Vagheesh Narasimhan,
and Niraj Rai, who established a new ancient DNA laboratory at the
Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences in Lucknow, India, and led the
preparation of the samples, screened 61 skeletal samples from a site in
Rakhigarhi, the largest city of the IVC. A single sample showed promise:
it contained a very small amount of authentic ancient DNA. The team
made over 100 attempts to sequence the sample. Reich says: "While each
of the individual datasets did not produce enough DNA, pooling them
resulted in sufficient genetic data to learn about population history."
There were many theories about the genetic origins of the people of
the IVC. "They could resemble Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers or they
could resemble Iranians, or they could even resemble Steppe
pastoralists--all were plausible prior to the ancient DNA findings," he
says.
The individual sequenced here fits with a set of 11 individuals from
sites across Iran and Central Asia known to be in cultural contact with
the IVC, discovered in a manuscript being published simultaneously
(also led by Reich and Narasimhan) in the journal Science.
Those individuals were genetic outliers among the people at the sites in
which they were found. They represent a unique mixture of ancestry
related to ancient Iranians and ancestry related to Southeast Asian
hunter-gatherers. Their genetic similarity to the Rakhigarhi individual
makes it likely that these were migrants from the IVC.
It's a mix of ancestry that is also present in modern South Asians,
leading the researchers to believe that people from the IVC like the
Rakhigarhi individuals were the single largest source population for the
modern-day people of India. "Ancestry like that in the IVC individuals
is the primary ancestry source in South Asia today," says Reich. "This
finding ties people in South Asia today directly to the Indus Valley
Civilization."
The findings also offer a surprising insight into how agriculture
reached South Asia. A mainstream view in archaeology has been that
people from the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East--home to the
earliest evidence of farming--spread across the Iranian plateau and from
there into South Asia, bringing with them a new and transformative
economic system.
Genetic studies to date seemed to add weight to this theory by
showing that Iranian-related ancestry was the single biggest contributor
to the ancestry in South Asians.
But this new study shows that the lineage of Iranian-related
ancestry in modern South Asians split from ancient Iranian farmers,
herders, and hunter-gatherers before they separated from each
other--that is, even before the invention of farming in the Fertile
Crescent. Thus, farming was either reinvented locally in South Asia or
reached it through the cultural transmission of ideas rather than
through substantial movement of western Iranian farmers.
For Reich, Shinde, and their team, these findings are just the
beginning. "The Harappans built a complex and cosmopolitan ancient
civilization, and there was undoubtedly variation in it that we cannot
detect by analyzing a single individual," Shinde says. "The insights
that emerge from just this single individual demonstrate the enormous
promise of ancient DNA studies of South Asia. They make it clear that
future studies of much larger numbers of individuals from a variety of
archaeological sites and locations have the potential to transform our
understanding of the deep history of the subcontinent."
IMAGE: The first sequenced genome from an
archaeological site associated with the ancient Indus Valley
Civilization came from this woman buried at the city of Rakhigarhi.
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Credit: Vasant Shinde/Cell
The largest-ever study of ancient human DNA, along with the first
genome of an individual from the ancient Indus Valley Civilization,
reveal in unprecedented detail the shifting ancestry of Central and
South Asian populations over time.
The research, published online Sept. 5 in a pair of papers in Science and Cell,
also answers longstanding questions about the origins of farming and
the source of Indo-European languages in South and Central Asia.
Geneticists, archaeologists and anthropologists from North America,
Europe, Central Asia and South Asia analyzed the genomes of 524 never
before-studied ancient individuals. The work increased the worldwide
total of published ancient genomes by about 25 percent.
By comparing these genomes to one another and to previously
sequenced genomes, and by putting the information into context alongside
archaeological, linguistic and other records, the researchers filled in
many of the key details about who lived in various parts of this region
from the Mesolithic Era (about 12,000 years ago) to the Iron Age (until
around 2,000 years ago) and how they relate to the people who live
there today.
"With this many samples, we can detect subtle interactions between
populations as well as outliers within populations, something that has
only become possible in the last couple of years through technological
advances," said David Reich, co-senior author of both papers and
professor of genetics in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical
School.
"These studies speak to two of the most profound cultural
transformations in ancient Eurasia--the transition from hunting and
gathering to farming and the spread of Indo-European languages, which
are spoken today from the British Isles to South Asia--along with the
movement of people," said Vagheesh Narasimhan, co-first author of both
papers and a postdoctoral fellow in the Reich lab. "The studies are
particularly significant because Central and South Asia are such
understudied parts of the world."
"One of the most exciting aspects of this study is the way it
integrates genetics with archaeology and linguistics," said Ron Pinhasi
of the University of Vienna, co-senior author of the Science
paper. "The new results emerged after combining data, methods and
perspectives from diverse academic disciplines, an integrative approach
that provides much more information about the past than any one of these
disciplines could alone."
"In addition, the introduction of new sampling methodologies allowed
us to minimize damage to skeletons while maximizing the chance of
obtaining genetic data from regions where DNA preservation is often
poor," Pinhasi added. Language key
Indo-European languages--including Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi,
Persian, Russian, English, Spanish, Gaelic and more than 400
others--make up the largest language family on Earth.
For decades, specialists have debated how Indo-European languages
made their way to distant parts of the world. Did they spread via
herders from the Eurasian Steppe? Or did they travel with farmers moving
west and east from Anatolia (present-day Turkey)?
A 2015 paper by Reich and colleagues indicated that Indo-European languages arrived in Europe via the steppe. The Science
study now makes a similar case for South Asia by showing that
present-day South Asians have little if any ancestry from farmers with
Anatolian roots.
"We can rule out a large-scale spread of farmers with Anatolian
roots into South Asia, the centerpiece of the 'Anatolian hypothesis'
that such movement brought farming and Indo-European languages into the
region," said Reich, who is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute and the Broad Institute. "Since no substantial
movements of people occurred, this is checkmate for the Anatolian
hypothesis."
One new line of evidence in favor of a steppe origin for
Indo-European languages is the detection of genetic patterns that
connect speakers of the Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic branches of
Indo-European. The researchers found that present-day speakers of both
branches descend from a subgroup of steppe pastoralists who moved west
toward Europe almost 5,000 years ago and then spread back eastward into
Central and South Asia in the following 1,500 years.
"This provides a simple explanation in terms of ancient movements of
people for the otherwise puzzling shared linguistic features of these
two branches of Indo-European, which today are separated by vast
geographic distances," said Reich.
A second line of evidence in favor of a steppe origin is the
researchers' discovery that of the 140 present-day South Asian
populations analyzed in the study, a handful show a remarkable spike in
ancestry from the steppe. All but one of these steppe-enriched
populations are historically priestly groups, including
Brahmins--traditional custodians of texts written in the ancient
Indo-European language Sanskrit.
"The finding that Brahmins often have more steppe ancestry than
other groups in South Asia, controlling for other factors, provides a
fascinating new argument in favor of a steppe origin for Indo-European
languages in South Asia," said Reich.
"This study has filled in a large piece of the puzzle of the spread
of Indo-European," said co-author Nick Patterson, research fellow in
genetics at HMS and a staff scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and
Harvard. "I believe the high-level picture is now understood."
"This problem has been in the air for 200 years or more and it's now
rapidly being sorted out," he added. "I'm very excited by that." Agriculture origins
The studies inform another longstanding debate, this one about
whether the change from a hunting and gathering economy to one based on
farming was driven more by movements of people, the copying of ideas or
local invention.
In Europe, ancient-DNA studies have shown that agriculture arrived along with an influx of people with ancestry from Anatolia.
The new study reveals a similar dynamic in Iran and Turan (southern
Central Asia), where the researchers found that Anatolian-related
ancestry and farming arrived around the same time.
"This confirms that the spread of agriculture entailed not only a
westward route from Anatolia to Europe but also an eastward route from
Anatolia into regions of Asia previously only inhabited by
hunter-gatherer groups," said Pinhasi.
Then, as farming spread northward through the mountains of Inner
Asia thousands of years after taking hold in Iran and Turan, "the links
between ancestry and economy get more complex," said archaeologist
Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis, co-senior
author who led much of the skeletal sampling for the Science paper.
By around 5,000 years ago, the researchers found, southwestern Asian
ancestry flowed north along with farming technology, while Siberian or
steppe ancestry flowed south onto the Iranian plateau. The two-way
pattern of movement took place along the mountains, a corridor that
Frachetti previously showed was a "Bronze Age Silk Road" along which
people exchanged crops and ideas between East and West.
In South Asia, however, the story appears quite different. Not only
did the researchers find no trace of the Anatolian-related ancestry that
is a hallmark of the spread of farming to the west, but the
Iranian-related ancestry they detected in South Asians comes from a
lineage that separated from ancient Iranian farmers and hunter-gatherers
before those groups split from each other.
The researchers concluded that farming in South Asia was not due to
the movement of people from the earlier farming cultures of the west;
instead, local foragers adopted it.
"Prior to the arrival of steppe pastoralists bringing their
Indo-European languages about 4,000 years ago, we find no evidence of
large-scale movements of people into South Asia," said Reich.
First glimpse of the ancestry of the Indus Valley Civilization
Running from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, the Indus River
Valley was the site of one of the first civilizations of the ancient
world, flourishing between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago. People built towns
with populations in the tens of thousands. They used standardized
weights and measures and exchanged goods with places as far-flung as
East Africa. But who were they?
Before now, geneticists were unable to extract viable data from
skeletons buried at Indus Valley Civilization archaeological sites
because the heat and volatile climate of lowland South Asia have
degraded most DNA beyond scientists' ability to analyze it.
The Cell paper changes this.
After screening more than 60 skeletal samples from the largest known
town of the Indus Valley Civilization, called Rakhigarhi, the authors
found one with a hint of ancient DNA. After more than 100 sequencing
attempts, they generated enough data to reach meaningful conclusions.
The ancient woman's genome matched those of 11 other ancient people reported in the Science
paper who lived in what is now Iran and Turkmenistan at sites known to
have exchanged objects with the Indus Valley Civilization. All 12 had a
distinctive mix of ancestry, including a lineage related to Southeast
Asian hunter-gatherers and an Iranian-related lineage specific to South
Asia. Because this mix was different from the majority of people living
in Iran and Turkmenistan at that time, the authors propose that the 11
individuals reported in the Science paper were migrants, likely from the Indus Valley Civilization.
None of the 12 had evidence of ancestry from steppe pastoralists,
consistent with the model that that group hadn't arrived yet in South
Asia.
The Science paper further showed that after the decline of
the Indus Valley Civilization between 4,000 and 3,500 years ago, a
portion of the group to which these 12 individuals belonged mixed with
people coming from the north who had steppe pastoralist ancestry,
forming the Ancestral North Indians, one of the two primary ancestral
populations of present-day people in India. A portion of the original
group also mixed with people from peninsular India to form the other
primary source population, the Ancestral South Indians.
"Mixtures of the Ancestral North Indians and Ancestral South
Indians--both of whom owe their primary ancestry to people like that of
the Indus Valley Civilization individual we sequenced--form the primary
ancestry of South Asians today," said Patterson.
"The study directly ties present-day South Asians to the ancient peoples of South Asia's first civilization," added Narasimhan.
The authors caution that analyzing the genome of only one individual
limits the conclusions that can be drawn about the entire population of
the Indus Valley Civilization.
"My best guess is that the Indus Valley Civilization itself was
genetically extremely diverse," said Patterson. "Additional genomes will
surely enrich the picture."
Scientists have identified the missing part of a finger bone
fragment from the Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, revealing that
Denisovans--an early human population discovered when the original
fragment was genetically sequenced in 2010--had fingers
indistinguishable from modern humans despite being more closely related
to Neanderthals. This finding uncovers an important piece of evidence to
the puzzle surrounding Denisovan skeletal morphology and suggests that
finger bone characteristics unique to Neanderthals evolved after their
evolutionary split from Denisovans.
The Denisovans lived in Asia for
hundreds of thousands of years, sometimes interbreeding with
Neanderthals and perhaps archaic Eurasian humans, with some present-day
human populations still carrying Denisovan DNA. However, only five
Denisovan skeletal remains have been found--mostly molars--and the
finger bone fragment previously recovered and used to generate the
genome was too incomplete to reveal much about the whole appendage.
E.
Andrew Bennett et al. matched the missing fragment to the original by
using DNA extraction and sequencing techniques to capture its entire
mitochondrial DNA sequence. They then reanalyzed scans and photographs
of the fragments and compared them with finger bones from Neanderthals,
as well as Pleistocene and recent modern humans at various stages of
development.
The researchers found that the digit was a fifth finger
bone from the right hand of an adolescent female Denisovan who likely
died at about 13.5 years old. The authors say researchers should take
caution when identifying potential Denisovan skeletal remains, since
they may appear more similar to modern humans than to Neanderthals.
IMAGE: This is a genetic map of the British
Isles, based on work by Professor Jim Wilson from the University of
Edinburgh's Usher Institute and MRC Human Genetics Unit.
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Credit: The University of Edinburgh
The DNA of Scottish people still contains signs of the country's
ancient kingdoms, with many apparently living in the same areas as their
ancestors did more than a millennium ago, a study shows.
Experts have constructed Scotland's first comprehensive genetic map,
which reveals that the country is divided into six main clusters of
genetically similar individuals: the Borders, the south-west, the
north-east, the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland.
These groupings are in similar locations to Dark Age kingdoms such
as Strathclyde in the south-west, Pictland in the north-east, and
Gododdin in the south-east. The Dark Ages are widely considered to be
from the end of the Roman Empire in 476 AD to around 1000 AD.
In addition to showcasing Scotland's genetic continuity, experts
believe this type of population analysis could aid the discovery of rare
DNA differences that might play major roles in human disease.
The new data from Scotland means this is the first time the genetic
map of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland can be seen in its
entirety, researchers say.
The study also discovered that some of the founders of Iceland may
have originated from north-west Scotland and Ireland and that the Isle
of Man is genetically predominantly Scottish.
The study looked at the genetic makeup of more than 2500 people from
Britain and Ireland - including almost 1000 from Scotland - whose
grandparents or great grandparents were born within 50 miles of each
other.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and RCSI (Royal College
of Surgeons in Ireland) then compared this with the DNA of people who
lived thousands of years ago.
Experts found that Orkney and Shetland had the highest levels of
Norwegian ancestry outside Scandinavia and that many islands within the
archipelagos had their own unique genetic identity.
The islands also contained subtle, but notable genetic differences
between people living only a few miles apart, with no obvious physical
barriers.
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the Chief
Scientist Office of the Scottish Executive and Science Foundation
Ireland.
It is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Professor Jim Wilson, from the University of Edinburgh's Usher
Institute and MRC Human Genetics Unit, said: "It is remarkable how long
the shadows of Scotland's Dark Age kingdoms are, given the massive
increase in movement from the industrial revolution to the modern era.
We believe this is largely due to the majority of people marrying
locally and preserving their genetic identity."
Dr Edmund Gilbert, from RCSI, added: "This work is important not
only from the historical perspective, but also for helping understand
the role of genetic variation in human disease. Understanding the
fine-scale genetic structure of a population helps researchers better
separate disease-causing genetic variation from that which occurs
naturally in the British and Irish populations, but has little or no
impact on disease risk."
IMAGE: Skulls from mass grave in Yaroslavl, Russia, showing traces of violence
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Credit: Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and
the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology have used DNA
testing to prove close genetic kinship between three individuals buried
in a mass grave following the capture of the Russian city Yaroslavl by
Batu Khan's Mongol army in 1238. This confirms the hypothesis made by
archaeologists and anthropologists after studying the remains of 15
persons interred on a historic estate.
"In addition to recreating the overall picture of the fall of the
city in 1238, we now see the tragedy of one family," said Asya
Engovatova, deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology, RAS, and
head of excavations on the Yaroslavl site. "DNA analysis has shown that
there were remains of genetically related individuals representing three
generations. Anthropological data suggest these were a grandmother aged
55 or older, her daughter aged 30 to 40 and grandson, a young man of
about 20. A fourth member of the family related through the female line
was buried in the neighboring mass grave."
"Importantly, these family relations were initially postulated by
archaeologists and anthropologists, and then confirmed by genetic data,"
the scientist added. "This makes our research more evidential and
allows us to discuss the 13th-century events and way of life with more
certainty."
The researchers announced their discovery at the eighth Alekseyev
Readings, an international conference held Aug. 26-28 at the Anuchin
Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology in Moscow.
Historical records name Yaroslavl among other cities devastated by
Batu Khan's army during his military campaign against the Grand Duchy of
Vladimir in the early 13th century. However, the true scope of the
tragedy only became clear in 2005, when salvage excavations began on the
site of the city's Assumption Cathedral, built in the early 13th
century, demolished in 1937, and restored between 2004-2010. Over just
five years, nine mass graves and over 300 buried individuals who had
died a violent death were found, more than in the other ravaged cities.
The findings of prior research then enabled a detailed reconstruction of
the events: It was proved that the unearthed victims died during the
capture of Yaroslavl by Batu Khan's forces in February 1238.
"Batu Khan's conquest was the greatest national tragedy, surpassing
any other event in cruelty and destruction. It is not by chance that it
is among the few such events that made its way into the Russian
folklore," Engovatova said. "What we now know about those raids suggests
that chronicle descriptions of 'a city drowned in blood' were not
merely a figure of speech."
"The first third of the 13th century saw the conquest of China,
Central Asia, the Caucasus, Volga Bulgaria, and the part of the East
European Plain where Yaroslavl lies," the researcher went on. "Some
publications of the past 10-15 years took the viewpoint that the
inclusion of Rus [the present-day Russia] into the Golden Horde was
almost peaceful and voluntary, with practically no major atrocities
committed. But it is now obvious this was not really the case."
One of the mass graves -- now identified as No. 76 -- was located at
the center of the inner city citadel. There, corpses were buried in a
shallow pit on a rich homestead burned during the assault on the city.
The main wooden house and the outbuildings on the estate contained many
artifacts, pointing to the high status of the owners.
That grave in particular attracted the researchers' attention,
because the pit for it was dug on purpose, while the other mass graves
nearby were located in the basements of houses and burned-down
outbuildings. That kind of burial contradicted the norms of the day and
did not observe the ritual. The 15 men, women, and children in the pit
were unearthed in different poses, and some of the corpses had badly
decomposed by the time they were interred. This strongly suggests that
the bodies were simply disposed of in that way, for sanitary reasons.
Many of the corpses bore marks of a violent death on the bones --
traces of unhealed piercing and cutting wounds. Some of the bones were
burnt, pointing to the fire that ravaged the city.
Fly larvae, shown in figure 1 (left), were found in the remains,
indicating advanced stages of decomposition and allowing the researchers
to date the burial. By identifying the blowfly species, entomologists
knew at what average daily temperature their larvae would reach the
observed stage of development. That temperature corresponded to late May
or early June conditions.
"The data on the time they were buried are very precise and support
the anthropologists' hypothesis that the corpses had partly decomposed.
These people were killed, and their bodies remained lying in the snow
for a fairly long time. In April or May, flies started to multiply on
the remains, and in late May or early June they were buried in a pit on
the homestead, which is where they probably had lived," Engovatova said.
Anthropologists studying the remains were the first to hypothesize
kinship between some of the buried individuals. This was suggested by
epigenetic feature similarities: the presence of a birth defect known as
spina bifida, a persistent metopic suture, an expressed osteoma on the
cranial vault, and intercondylar fossa characteristics.
The anthropology group also inferred possible intermarriages within
the family from certain abnormalities that are characteristic of
children born from such marriages. Apart from that, the members of this
family suffered from tooth decay more than the other buried individuals.
Since it predominantly develops in connection with a diet rich in
sugars and carbohydrates, the family apparently consumed more sugar and
honey than their average contemporaries.
Kharis Mustafin and Irina Alborova led the research team from MIPT's
Historical Genetics, Radiocarbon Analysis and Applied Physics Lab,
which undertook a complex molecular and genetic study of the remains of
eight buried individuals. The team cleaned the archaeological samples of
bones and teeth, pulverized them, and recovered the ancient DNA. Its
analysis revealed the same mitochondrial DNA mutations in three
individuals, while studying autosomal DNA markers supplied the data on
how closely the persons were related. In addition, one mitochondrial DNA
line pointed to a fourth possible maternal relative, buried in a
neighboring grave.
"Genetic studies have confirmed the relationship between three of
them. They were probably members of the same wealthy, high-ranking
family," Engovatova said. "The location of the estate at the center of
the citadel confirms this, and so do the archaeological finds made on
the estate. Even a hanging seal was found. This might well be the very
family that owned the rich homestead excavated 3 meters from the grave."
Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority
have made what they claim to be a major discovery. They believe that
they have found a Byzantine-era church that was built on the site of the
home of two of Jesus Christ ’s earliest disciples,
Peter and Andrew. If this is true then it could help to settle a
long-running dispute over the location of the Biblical village of Bethsaida, later a city known as Julias.
A team of Israeli and American archaeologists, from the Kinneret
Academic College and Nyack College, New York made the discovery, near
Lake Galilee in Northern Israel.
They found what they claim are the remains of a Byzantine-era church
(330-700 AD) at Beit Habel, which is also known as el-Araj.
They have been working at this site for four years and in 2017, according to the I AM Nyack
website, the archaeologists “uncovered evidence of the ancient city,
Bethsaida-Julias”. El-Araj has been inhabited since the period of the Second Temple .
According to Haaretz, the experts found “gilded glass tesserae ( mosaic tiles )”. These are from wall mosaics one of the distinguishing characteristics of a Byzantine church .
Mosaic tiles were discovered at the unearthed
Byzantine church. Shown is a mosaic of Christ from the Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul. (Dianelos / CC BY-SA 3.0 )
They have also found some evidence of floor mosaics , roof-tiles, and a carving in chalk with a Christian symbol .
The building has a west-east axis, this and the presence of the outline
of a nave indicates that it was a Christian place of worship.
A Lost Byzantine Church
The team believe that the structure is lost Church of the Apostles. According to Christian tradition, it was constructed on the home of the two apostles Peter and Andrew. The ruins have not been dated but they are believed to be from the 5th century AD, some five hundred years after Peter and Andrew became followers of Jesus.
The experts believe that they found the church because of the
writings of a southern German bishop from 725 AD. The prelate, who was
named Willibald stated that he saw the church while traveling from
Capernaum to Kursine, near the Lake of Galilee.
-The archaeologists believe that this is the only church ever found
or documented in this location. This they claim means that they have
discovered the church that marked the home of St. Andrew and St. Peter , the first Pope .
The Bethsaida-Julias Debate
Professor Mordechai Aviam from Kinneret Academic College and his
colleague R. Steven Notley of Noyeck College, believe that the discovery
of the Church of the Apostles provides further evidence that el-Araj
was the location of ancient Bethsaida, which is mentioned in the New Testament . This was a small Galilean fishing village before one of the descendants of Herod the Great turned it into a city, known as Julias, in the 1st century AD.
But not everyone in the archaeological community accepts this and Haaretz
reports that some believe that the nearby site of e-Tell, is the
location of Bethsaida, which is argued by Professor Rami Arav of the
Hebrew Union College. He believes that the probable church at el-Araj
was not the same as that seen by the German bishop in the 8th century
AD.
