|In 1998, a man walking along the beach at Holme-next-the-Sea stumbled upon a Bronze Age timber circle that had emerged overnight from East Anglia’s shifting sands. The 55 posts circling an upside-down tree is a relic from 2050 BC. The centrepiece may have been a ceremonial altar from which bodies could travel to the afterlife.|
Sunday, 31 January 2021
Sunday, 24 January 2021
Friday, 22 January 2021
|The Crosby Garrett Helmet is a copper alloy Roman cavalry helmet dating from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD. It was found by a metal detectorist near Crosby Garrett in Cumbria in May 2010. Later investigations found that a farming settlement had occupied the site where the helmet was discovered, which was a few miles away from a Roman road and Roman army fort.
It is thought to have been used for ceremonial occasions rather than combat. It's design may allude to the Trojans, whose exploits Romans re-enacted in cavalry tournaments. Only two other Roman cavalry parade helmets complete with masks have turned up in the UK.|
The Ribchester Helmet was found in 1796 and is held by the British Museum. The Newstead Helmet was found around 1905 and is kept at the Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh.
|The headpiece is shaped like a Phrygian cap with a winged griffin standing with one raised foot resting on an amphora. The griffin was the companion of Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance and fate. ||They were agents of death and were often linked with gladiatorial combat.|
Statuette of Nemesis in the form of Female Griffin with Wheel of Fortune, 2nd century C.E
The helmet and visor were cast from an alloy of 82% copper, 10% zinc and 8% tin. On October 7 2010, the helmet was sold at Christie's for £2.3 million (US$3.6 million)|
Architectural panel with a griffin Roman, about A.D. 175–200.
Thursday, 21 January 2021
|A tourist from Belgium paid a price for going where he wasn’t supposed to go and attempting to steal an ancient artifact by putting it into a sock and stuffing it into a backpack. An alert hiking guide at the world-famous Burgess Shale Formation in Canada’s Yoho National Park spotted the tourist in a restricted area and alerted wardens.|
The tourist was collecting fossils illegally near the Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale, a fossil field with some artifacts more than 500 million years old. Wardens dug through the tourist’s backpack and discovered the trilobite fossil.
The Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale.
|The Burgess Shale Formation is located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia. It is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils.|
At 508 million years (Middle Cambrian) old, it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints.
|Burgess Shale contains the best record we have of Cambrian animal fossils. It reveals creatures originating from the Cambrian explosion, an evolutionary burst of animal origins dating 545 to 525 million years ago.|
The Burgess Shale fossils have been called the world’s most significant fossil discovery because of their great age, their diversity and the detail of their preservation.
Wednesday, 20 January 2021
|In the Early Bronze Age, ancient people used bronze objects as an early form of money. Researchers
suggest that a consistent similarity in shape and weight, along with the fact that the objects often occurred in hoards, are signs of their use as an early form of standardized currency. |
Standardized currency is a requirement for trade, a cornerstone of human development.
Saturday, 16 January 2021
|Újlengyel is a Hungarian village about 31 miles (50 km) southeast of Budapest. The oldest coin is a silver denarius of Roman emperor Lucius Verus, who ruled from A.D.161 to A.D. 169. The newest coins date to Louis II, who ruled Hungary and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. The hoard consists of nearly 7,000 silver coins and four gold coins. The four gold coins were issued during the reign of Matthias I, the king of Hungary from 1458 to 1490. Hungarians may have buried the hoard during an attack from the Ottoman Empire in 1526.|
|The Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, defeated Hungary and its allies in the Battle of Mohács on Aug. 29, 1526; this marked the end of the Hungarian monarchy.|
Friday, 15 January 2021
|The “Corsica Hoard” was first discovered in the late 1950s by two urchin divers. 41 aurei and large gold medallions were sold to collectors. In 1986 it was revealed hundreds of high-grade Roman gold coins dating from 262 to 272 CE had been found.|
|450 pieces remain in public hands. Its thought the hoard contained at least 1,400 coins, comprised of coins from Gallienus, Claudius II, Quintillus, and Aurelianus. Archeologists date the wreck to either late 272 or early 273 CE.|
Thursday, 14 January 2021
A restored fresco from Pompeii that many believe depicts Sappho.
|Cape Lefkada features a towering white cliff jutting into the sea, and has inspired many ancient myths. Lovers and tragic figures throughout the ages are said to have thrown themselves from the craggy heights.
The death of Sappho is the best known. According to legend, Sappho died after throwing herself from the Cape, forlorn after a beautiful sea god named Phaon rejected her love. |
Some versions of the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis end with the goddess of love jumping off its heights after hearing of her lover’s death. Due to her status as a goddess, she did not die, and landed in the water unharmed.
Wednesday, 13 January 2021
|Israel officials seized a huge hoard of artifacts, which span the 1st millennium B.C. through the 11th century A.D., during raids at three sites in central Israel. Among the thousands of items are coins from the Seleucid Empire, which ruled Israel between 312 and 63 B.C.; Roman-era oil lamps; and stone statuettes of gods. Among the artifacts recovered are pieces of pottery, including rare vases made in Greece and Italy during the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. |
The items were usually found in tombs and were extremely precious.
Tuesday, 12 January 2021
|Archaeologists excavating near ancient Tamassos have located one of the most important sanctuaries discovered in Cyprus to date, more than 125 years after its exact position was lost. The Sanctuary of Apollo at Frangkissa was subject to a dig in 1885. Only a small part of the finds from 1885 have remained in Cyprus.|
|Analysis of the finds shows that the area had been occupied since the Iron Age and was used throughout the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods.
Monday, 11 January 2021
|In 2019, 16 gold solidi, most of them minted by Theodosius II (408 – 450 AD), the third longest ruling Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, popularly known today as Byzantium, were discovered by archaeologists excavating the ruins of ancient Marcianopolis in Bulgaria’s Devnya. Marcianopolis (Marcianople) was a major Roman and Early Byzantine city.|
Friday, 8 January 2021
Most of the items are funeral offerings, found in the inside of sarcophagi made of hollow trunks.
|The Quimbaya civilization was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, noted for their gold work. Most of the gold is made in tumbaga alloy, with 30% copper. The Quimbaya reached their zenith during the 4th to 7th century CE. |
The gold represented a sacred metal and the passport for the afterlife.
|Around the 10th century the Quimbaya culture disappeared entirely for unknown reasons.|