Greek Farmer Stumbles Onto 3,400-Year-Old Tomb Hidden Below His Olive Grove
If you live in an environment where ancient cultures flourish, you often slip into fascinating bits of long-forgotten history. That’s what happened to one Greek farmer living in Crete, not far from the town of Ierapetra.
When the ground below him started to give way, the farmer parked his truck under some olive trees on his property. After the farmer moved his vehicle to a safer place, he saw a four-foot hole opening in the ground. He realized that this was not an ordinary hole when he looked inside.
The hole in the ground led to a Minoan Bronze Age tomb.
The farmer called archaeologists from the Ministry of Heritage to investigate, and began excavating an ancient Minoan grave, carved into the soft limestone pillar, which had been hidden for thousands of years.
Two adult Minoans had been set in high-embossed clay reefs called “larnakes,” common in the Minoan culture of the Bronze Age. These, in turn, were surrounded by funerary vases which indicated that the men had a high status.
The ancient chamber tomb was entirely intact and undamaged by looters.
The tomb was about 13 feet in length and eight feet deep, divided into three chambers that would have been accessed via a vertical tunnel that was sealed with clay after the tomb’s occupants were laid to rest. One larnax was found in the northernmost chamber, with a number of funerary vessels scattered around it.
The chamber at the southern end of the tomb held the other larnax coffin, along with 14 amphorae and a bowl. The tomb was estimated to be about 3,400 years old, and was preserved in near-perfect condition, making it a valuable find.
Two Minoan men were buried in the Crete tomb roughly 3,400 years ago
Kristina Killgrove, a bioarchaeologist, wrote for Forbes that the ornamentation on the artifacts found in the tomb suggest that its inhabitants were men of wealth. The fanciest tombs from the same period, however, had massive domed walls in a “beehive” style, which this tomb doesn’t, so they probably weren’t among the wealthiest.
The find dates from the Late Minoan Period, sometimes called the Late Palace Period. In the earlier part of that era, Minoan civilization was very rich, with impressive ceramics and art, but by the later part of the period there is an apparent decline in wealth and prestige, according to Killgrove.
It’s believed that the civilization was weakened by a combination of natural disasters, including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake, and the eruption of a nearby volcano. This made it easier for foreigners to come in and destroy the palaces.
Locals don’t anticipate the discovery of any more tombs of this type, but the area is known to be the home of a number of antiquities, and a great deal of them have been found by coincidence, as with this find.
The Deputy Mayor of Local Communities, Agrarian and Tourism of Ierapetra pointed out that the tomb had never been found by thieves, and went on to say that it would probably have remained undiscovered forever, except for the broken irrigation pipe that was responsible for the softened and eroded soil in the farmer’s olive grove.
He went on to say how pleased they were with having the tomb to further enrich their understanding of their ancient culture and history, and that the tomb was proof for those historians who didn’t think that there had been Minoans in that part of Crete.
Previously, it had been thought that the Minoans only settled in the lowlands and plains of the island, not in the mountains that surround Ierapetra, although there was an excavation in 2012 that uncovered a Minoan mansion in the same area.
The 5,000-year-old Pavlopetri, Greece, is considered to be the oldest submerged Lost city in the world
The city of Pavlopetri, underwater off the coast of southern Laconia in Peloponnese, Greece, is about 5,000 years old, and one of the oldest submerged Lost city (oldest in Mediterranean sea).
The name Pavlopetri (“Paul’s and Peter’s”, or “Paul’s stone”) is the modern name for the islet and beach, apparently named for the two Christian saints that are celebrated together; the ancient name or names are unknown.
Discovered in 1967 by Nicholas Flemming and mapped in 1968 by a team of archaeologists from Cambridge, Pavlopetri is located between the Pavlopetri islet across the Elafonisos village and the Pounta coast.
The coast, the archaeological site as well as the islet and the surrounding sea area are within the region of the Elafonisos Municipality, the old “Onou Gnathos” peninsula (according to Pausanias). It is unique in having an almost complete town plan, including streets, buildings, and tombs.
Originally, the ruins were dated to the Mycenaean period, 1600–1100 BC but later studies showed an older occupation date starting no later than 2800 BC, so it also includes early Bronze Age middle Minoan and transitional material.
It is now believed that the town was submerged around 1000 BC by the first of three earthquakes that the area suffered. The area never re-emerged, so it was neither built-over nor disrupted by agriculture.
Although eroded over the centuries, the town layout is as it was thousands of years ago. The site is under threat of damage by boats dragging anchors, as well as by tourists and souvenir hunters.
Overview of Pavlopetri.
The fieldwork of 2022was largely to map the site. It is the first submerged town digitally surveyed in three dimensions.Sonar mapping techniques developed by military and oil prospecting organisations have aided recent work.
The city has at least 15 buildings submerged in 3 to 4 metres (9.8–13.1 ft) of water. The newest discoveries in 2009 alone cover 9,000 m2 (2.2 acres).
Position of Pavlopetri.
As of October 2009, four more fieldwork sessions are planned, also in collaboration with the Greek government as a joint project. Those sessions will do excavations.
Also working alongside the archaeologists (from the University of Nottingham) are a team from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, who aim to take underwater archaeology into the 21st century.
They have developed several unique robots to survey the site in various ways. One of the results of the survey was to establish that the town was the centre of a thriving textile industry (from the many loom weights found in the site). Also many large pitharis pots (from Crete) were excavated, also indicating a major trading port.
Archaeologists Find 1,900-Year-Old Snacks in Sewers Beneath the Colosseum
Spectators at Rome’s ancient amphitheater enjoyed olives, figs, nuts and more.
Archaeologists found fruit, nuts and other snacks in the sewers beneath the Colosseum.
In the sewers and passageways beneath the Colosseum, archaeologists have found new evidence of what attending events at the ancient amphitheater may have been like—and even what snacks spectators may have preferred.
During a yearlong study, scientists unearthed traces of olives, nuts, meats, cherries, grapes, figs, blackberries and peaches from 1,900 years ago. Attendees at the famous amphitheater likely munched on these snacks while watching events like plays and gladiator fights.
The discoveries “deepen our understanding of the experience and habits of those who came to this place during the long days dedicated to the performances,” says Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, according to Reuters.
Also among the findings: bones from lions, bears, dogs and other animals. The researchers hypothesize that these animals may have been forced to fight each other in front of audiences, or perhaps used as prey as part of hunting demonstrations, reports Reuters.
They also found 50 bronze coins that date back to between the third and seventh centuries, in addition to a rare silver coin from around 171 marking ten years of Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ rule.
“The only places where such discoveries can be made are the sewers,” Federica Rinaldi, the Colosseum’s lead archaeologist, tells Popular Mechanics’ Tim Newcomb. “The importance of this discovery is in the type of animals. Besides lions and bears used in the shows, remains of small dogs, chickens and pigs were found.
There are also many plant remains that illustrate the biodiversity of Roman times and the presence of evergreen plants used for ornamental purposes in the arena during the shows [and possibly] in the area surrounding the Colosseum.”
Researchers began the immense project of clearing out the 2,000-year-old landmark’s sewers and lower passages in 2022. Per Artnet’s Vittoria Benzine, experts are using “wire-guided robots” to navigate the arena’s complex drainage system, hoping to “learn more about hydraulics systems that the Colosseum’s showrunners devised to flood its tunnels and produce water spectacles.”
“In particular we wanted to excavate the southern sewer because it was full of earth and many archaeological remains,” Rinaldi tells Artnet.
The famous Roman Colosseum is one of Europe’s most-visited landmarks. Though many associate the amphitheater, which was the largest in the ancient world, with gladiator fights, it was also used for extravagant theatrical productions, sometimes featuring fire displays, or even mock naval battles playing out on the flooded grounds in front of tens of thousands of spectators. The structure fell into disuse after around 523, when the last recorded games took place.
“The Colosseum continues to tell us its stories, clearly emerging in the wider flow of great history,” writes the Colosseum Archaeological Park in a statement, per Google Translate.
“Exploring the underground sewers, recovering the precious data of older investigations, we are studying to better understand the functioning of the ancient sewers and the hydraulics of the Flavian Amphitheater.”
Malta’s Hypogeum, One of the World’s Best Preserved Prehistoric Sites, Reopens to the Public
The complex of excavated cave chambers includes a temple, cemetery and funeral hall.
Main chamber
Chambers inside Malta’s Hypogeum.
Main chamber.
Passageways inside Malta’s Hypogeum.
Chambers inside Malta’s Hypogeum.
Red ochre spiral paintings inside the Hypogeum.
This month, one of the world’s best preserved prehistoric sites — a 6,000-year-old underground burial chamber on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta — reopened to the public.
Last June, Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, one of Europe’s only known neolithic necropolises, closed for a series of improvements to its environmental management system. Its reopening brings updates that will enhance conservation and ongoing data collection while improving visitor access and experience.
Archaeological evidence suggests that around 4,000 BCE, the people of Malta and Gozo began building with the purpose of ritualizing life and death. The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, one of the first and most famous of such complexes, is an underground network of alcoves and corridors carved into soft Globigerina limestone just three miles from what is now the capital city of Valletta.
The builders expanded existing caves and over the centuries excavated deeper, creating a temple, cemetery and funeral hall that would be used throughout the Żebbuġ, Ġgantija and Tarxien periods.
Over the next 1,500 years, known as the Temple Period, above-ground megalith structures cropped up throughout the archipelago, many with features that mirror their subterranean counterparts.
Whatever remained of the above-ground megalithic enclosure that once marked the Hypogeum’s entrance was destroyed by industrialization during the late 1800s. Now, visitors enter through a modernized lobby, then descend a railed walkway and move chronologically through two of the site’s three tiers, glimpsing along the way evidence of the structure’s dual role as worship and burial place.
The Hypogeum’s oldest and uppermost level consists of a passageway, access to a cistern below, a courtyard-like space dug into the promontory and five low-roofed burial chambers carved out of pre-existing caves.
Archaeologists believe this is where funerary processions likely began, and Heritage Malta has kept an original grave intact. The middle level is the most ornate. It is also where archaeologists believe the bulk of ritual activity took place. In the “Oracle Room,” an oblong chamber measuring more than five meters long, niches in the walls create amplified and echoing acoustic effects, much like those at the Oracle of Delphi.
The “Holy of Holies” is carved to look like many of the Hypogeum’s contemporary above-ground temples. In front of its entrance, two linked holes in the ground may have been used to collect libations or solid offerings. Visitors exit via a spiral staircase before entering the Hypogeum’s youngest and deepest level.
The third tier reaches 10 meters into the earth and consists of five spaces, each less than five meters in diameter, that give access to smaller rooms that served as mass graves.
The “Holy of Holies” room in Malta’s Hypogeum.
Like other megalith structures in Malta, the Hypogeum fell out of use by 2,500 BCE. The ancient necropolis wasn’t rediscovered until 1902, when construction workers accidentally found one of the chambers while excavating a well for a housing subdivision. It would be two more years before formal excavation took place and another four until the site opened to the public.
The Hypogeum provides insights into Malta’s Temple Culture and its contemporary above-ground structures. Archaeologists estimate over 6,000 people were buried at the site and have found beads, amulets, intricate pottery and carved figurines alongside the bones.
Several chambers are still decorated with black and white checkerboards and red ochre spirals and honey-combs, the only prehistoric paintings found on the island. Corbeled ceilings hint at how the ancient people of Malta supported roofs on the abundant above-ground buildings, now in ruins, found throughout the islands. “[It] gives us a chance to see what [the Hypogeum’s] contemporary temple structures might have looked like on the inside,” says Heritage Malta curator MariaElena Zammit.
According to Zammit, the Hypogeum and its artifacts held up over the millennia largely thanks to its encapsulation. “The Hypogeum is completely underground, completely closed, so it’s humid,” she says.
That moisture “keeps the salt in the stone soluble, preventing flaking. In other [temples throughout Malta], the surface is dissolving in places… [The Hypogeum] is held together by humidity.”
Without Heritage Malta’s careful control, the very presence of visitors to the ancient site would endanger its preservation. Curious fingertips leave behind visible oils that degrade any coloring and even the limestone itself.
Pathway-illuminating artificial lights encourage the growth of microorganisms, and the daily succession of warm, breathing bodies alters CO2 levels, airflow, temperature and humidity. So, while guides encourage tourists to play with the acoustics in the “Oracle Chamber,” visitors are prohibited from speaking directly into the echoing niche.
Preservation efforts first began in earnest in 1991, when the site closed for nearly a decade. The project resulted in walkways, visitor limitations, regulation of artificial light levels and an early but now outdated environmental control system.
More intensive monitoring began in 2022, as part of a grant from the European Economic Area to preserve the Unesco site for future generations, and those data, collected over a period of six years, provided the basis for the new environmental management system.
The Hypogeum’s newest preservation efforts include both passive and active measures, from improved insulation to better control humidity and temperature to modernized technology for studying microorganism growth and tracking real-time changes to the site’s microclimate. “Data will continue to be gathered and analyzed to continually assess the performance of the system installed, as well as [to] monitor the behavior of the site,” says Zammit.
Many of the changes won’t be visible to visitors: Ducts hide behind walls and the air handling units and chillers sit atop the visitor’s center roof. However, tourists will find a cleaner, more modern visitor center with high-pressure laminate panels, replacing mold-prone carpeting, and a new buffer system that gradually increases humidity between the welcome area and the main site.
The most exciting change for visitors will be the enhanced interpretation and virtual tour option. In 2000 after its first major preservation efforts, Heritage Malta limited site tours to 80 individuals per day. That number still stands, so visitors must book weeks or even months in advance to tour the Hypogeum in person.
Furthermore, low lighting and slick walkways render the site inaccessible to people in wheelchairs or with limited mobility. To help meet demand, the visitor’s center is now equipped with audiovisual technology that allows an additional 70 people to virtually tour the site daily from its lobby.
“Thus,” says Zammit, “Heritage Malta will be implementing its mission by making the site more accessible to more members of the community.”
2,000-Year-Old Grave of Child and Puppy Found in France
The dog, outfitted in a collar with a bell, was placed next to the 1-year-old’s feet.
A bent metal rod discovered in the grave was likely a dog toy.
Some 2,000 years ago, a small child in Roman Gaul—now France—died and was buried alongside what archaeologists say was probably a pet puppy.
As Kim Willsher reports for the Guardian, researchers from the National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research (INRAP) found an iron ring attached to a bent metal rod—likely a toy—between the legs of the dog, which was placed at the child’s feet outside of the coffin. The canine sported a collar with a bell and bronze decorations.
The child, who died when they were about 1 year old, was buried with an array of objects, including terracotta vases, half a pig and two headless chickens, as well as glass pots believed to have contained oils and medicines. The researchers are testing the receptacles to discover exactly what they held.
Given the wealth of grave goods found at the site, the team suggests that the child belonged to an elite family.
“The items that accompany this deceased are absolutely exceptional, both in terms of quantity and quality,” says an INRAP statement, per a translation by the Guardian.
“Such a profusion of crockery and butchered items, as well as the personal effects that followed the child to [their] grave, underline the privileged rank to which [their] family belonged.
A dog’s association with a young child is well documented in a funeral context, but here it is the collar and bell that are unusual.”
Dated to sometime during the first three decades A.D., more than 50 years after Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, the burial is the “oldest and most important” child’s grave unearthed in France to date, according to the Guardian. At the time of the infant’s death, Gaul was becoming increasingly assimilated into the Greco-Roman world.
The wealth of goods buried with the child suggests they hailed from an elite family.
Laurence Lautier, head of the research team, tells Agence France-Presse that the burial is “unusual because of the profusion of vases and offerings. In this type of tomb we often find one or two pots placed at the foot. Here there are around 20 as well as many food offerings.”
Lautier adds that the vessels probably contained “the child’s part of the food and drink from the funeral banquet.”
Also found in the grave was an older child’s baby tooth, which was placed on a fragment of shell. The researchers say that the tooth may have been left by a sibling of the deceased.
Though the bodies of adults were normally cremated during this period, small children were often buried, reports Clyde Hughes for UPI.
The research team conducted the dig ahead of a development project at the Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne Airport in central France. Since November, the group has excavated a 7.4-acre area of the site.
In addition to the Roman-era grave, the archaeologists have found artifacts spanning the Iron Age through the Middle Ages. Highlight include pits and structures dated to as early as 800 B.C., as well as medieval-era buildings containing equine and bovine remains that indicate they may have housed a butchery operation.
The entire site is covered by a network of ditches, suggesting that locals made multiple efforts to drain the area’s marshland over the millennia.
3,000-Year-Old Submerged Settlement Discovered in Switzerland
Traces of a prehistoric pile dwelling suggest humans inhabited the Lake Lucerne area 2,000 years earlier than previously thought
Underwater archaeologists recovered 30 wooden poles used as supports for prehistoric pile dwellings.
Archaeologists surveying Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne have discovered the remains of a submerged Bronze Age village.
As Swissinfo.ch reports, the new finds suggest that the area around the lake was settled 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. Though researchers have long searched for proof of early habitation in the Lucerne region, a thick layer of mud had obscured traces of the village until recently.
Per a statement from the local government, construction of a pipeline at Lake Lucerne offered underwater archaeologists the chance to examine the lakebed up close. The first dive took place in December ; between March 2022 and February 2022, reports Swissinfo.ch, the team recovered about 30 wooden poles and 5 ceramic fragments at depths of roughly 10 to 13 feet.
“These new finds from the Lucerne lake basin confirm that people settled here as early as 3,000 years ago,” says the statement, per Google Translate. “[W]ith this evidence, the city of Lucerne suddenly becomes around 2,000 years older than has been previously proven.”
Experts used radiocarbon analysis to date the artifacts to about 1000 B.C., when the lake level was more than 16 feet lower than it is today, writes Garry Shaw for the Art Newspaper. According to the statement, these conditions “formed an ideal, easily accessible settlement area” around the lake basin.
The team identified the wooden sticks found at the site as supports used in pile dwellings, or prehistoric coastal houses that stood on stilts. Dwellings of this kind were common in and around the Alps between 5000 and 500 B.C., notes Unesco, and can provide researchers with useful insights into Europe’s Neolithic period and Bronze Age.
Researchers surveyed the lakebed between December 2022 and February 2022.
“The wood is very soft on the outside and hard on the inside,” archaeologist Andreas Mäder tells Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), per Google Translate. “Something like that is typical of prehistoric piles.”
For now, the scholars’ research is limited to the trench surrounding the underwater pipeline. Traces of other submerged settlements are likely hidden nearby, but the team will need additional funding to investigate the area further.
As Heritage Daily reports, Lake Lucerne is a 44-square-mile body of water that reaches depths of up to 1,424 feet. Per a second government statement, the city of Lucerne itself was established 800 years ago.
Written records indicate that humans had settled in the area by the eighth century A.D., but until now, archaeological evidence of earlier habitation was scant.
Lake Lucerne’s water level rose significantly in the millennia following the submerged village’s peak, with a weather-driven increase in rubble and debris buildup exacerbated by medieval residents’ construction of water mills and other buildings. The lake likely reached its current level during the 15th century, according to the statement.
The archaeologists’ announcement coincides with the tenth anniversary of Unesco adding “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps” to its World Heritage List. In total, wrote Caroline Bishop for the Local Switzerland in 2017, the listing includes 111 sites across Europe, including 56 in Switzerland.
As Unesco noted in a 2011 statement, “The settlements are a unique group of exceptionally well-preserved and culturally rich archaeological sites, which constitute one of the most important sources for the study of early agrarian societies in the region.”
5,000-year-old ‘bog body’ found in Denmark may be a human sacrifice victim
The bones of a possible ancient human sacrifice victim have been found in a bog in Denmark.
The archaeologists first found the bones from a human leg, and then a pelvis and a lower jaw with some teeth still attached.
Archaeologists have discovered the ancient skeletal remains of a so-called bog body in Denmark near the remnants of a flint ax and animal bones, clues that suggest this person was ritually sacrificed more than 5,000 years ago.
Little is known so far about the supposed victim, including the person’s sex and age at the time of death. But the researchers think the body was deliberately placed in the bog during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.
“That’s the early phase of the Danish Neolithic,” said excavation leader Emil Struve(opens in new tab), an archaeologist and curator at the ROMU museums in Roskilde. “We know that traditions of human sacrifices date back that far — we have other examples of it.”
Dozens of so-called bog bodies have been found throughout northwestern Europe — particularly in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, where human sacrifices in bogs seem to have persisted for several thousand years.
“In our area here, we have several different bog bodies,” Struve told Live Science. “It’s an ongoing tradition that goes back all the way to the Neolithic.”
The archaeologists hope that wear on the teeth could indicate the person’s age when they died, and that the teeth themselves may contain ancient DNA.
Ancient bones
The ROMU archaeological team found the latest set of bones in October ahead of the construction of a housing development. The site, which has now been drained, had been a bog near the town of Stenløse, on the large island of Zealand and just northwest of the Danish capital Copenhagen.
Danish law requires archaeologists to examine all land that’s to be built on, and the first bones of the Stenløse bog body were found during a test excavation at the site, Struve said.
The site near Stenløse was originally a bog, but it’s been drained for use as farmland. A housing development is due to be built there next year
The archaeologists will now fully excavate the site in the spring, when the ground has thawed after winter. But the initial excavations have revealed leg bones, a pelvis and part of a lower jaw with some teeth still attached. The other parts of the body lay outside a protective layer of peat in the bog and were not preserved, he noted.
Several animal bones found near the human remains indicate this was an area of the bog used for rituals.
Struve hopes that the sex of the body can be determined based on the pelvis and that wear on the teeth may indicate the individual’s age. In addition, the teeth could be sources of ancient DNA, which might reveal even more about the person’s identity, he said.
Archaeologists from the ROMU museums supervised the digger making the initial test trench at the site near Stenløse
Bog bodies
Struve said the flint ax-head found near the body was not polished after it was made and may have never been used, and so it seems likely that this, too, was a deliberate offering.
A flint axe head found next to the human remains seems never to have been used; its in a style that dates to about 3600 B.C.
The oldest bog body in the world, known as Koelbjerg Man, was found in Denmark in the 1940s and may date to 10,000 years ago, while others date to the Iron Age in the region from about 2,500 years ago.
One of the most famous and best preserved bog bodies is Tollund Man, who was found on Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula in 1950 and is thought to have been sacrificed in about 400 B.C.
A few of the bog bodies seem to have been accident victims who drowned after they fell in the water, but archaeologists think most were killed deliberately, perhaps as human sacrifices at times of famines or other disasters.
Miranda Aldhouse-Green(opens in new tab), a professor emeritus of history, archaeology and religion at Cardiff University in the U.K. and the author of the book “Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe’s Ancient Mystery”(opens in new tab) (Thames & Hudson, 2015), said ancient people were likely well aware that bogs could preserve bodies.
“If you put a body in the bog, it would not decay — it would stay between the worlds of the living and the dead.”
Nazi ‘Enigma’ machine found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea
Nazis may have tossed this code-making machine overboard during WWII.
Divers trying to remove old fishing nets from the Baltic sea have accidentally stumbled on a Nazi code-making machine.
The Enigma machine, as it’s called, looks a bit like a typewriter. In fact, the diver who found the device on the ocean floor initially thought that’s what the artifact was, according to AFP.
But the diving team, on assignment for the conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), quickly realized that they had something much stranger.
During World War II, Enigma machines were used to encode German military messages, in hopes of preventing Allied powers from learning about troop movements and other plans. The devices consisted of a keyboard and a series of rotors that did the encoding.
The rotors substituted different letters for the ones typed in; different Enigma machines used between three and eight rotors, which moved independently after each keystroke so that the same initial letter typed into the machine would appear as multiple different letters in the final code.
While searching for abandoned fishing nets, German divers discovered this Enigma machine in the Baltic Sea.
To decode the message at the other end, an operator just needed to know the starting position of the rotors and the routers between them. Once the encoded message was entered into an Enigma machine with the right configuration, the machine would spit out the original text.
Cracking the Enigma code was an enormous part of the Allied war effort. Polish mathematicians Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki made the first attempts in 1939 and were able to recreate a mock-up of the Enigma machine, explain its basic functioning and decode many messages.
They then handed this information over to British intelligence, according to the BBC, because the Germans were changing the codes daily, making it more difficult for the Polish team to decipher their messages.
British mathematician Alan Turing was crucial to the effort to decode the German Navy’s Enigma messages, which were more complex, according to the Imperial War Museums. Cracking those codes was crucial for saving Allied ships from German U-boats, the submarines that sank more than 5,000 ships during World War I and more than 2,700 during World War II.
The Enigma machine found by the WWF diving crew was at the bottom of the Bay of Gelting in northeast Germany. It had three rotors, making it the type used on warships, not U-boats.
That suggests that the machine may have been tossed overboard in the final days of World War II, in an attempt to keep the technology out of enemy hands, historian Jann Witt of the German Naval Association told the DPA news agency.
The divers turned the machine over to the archaeology museum of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where archaeologists are restoring it.
That project should take about a year, according to Ulf Ickerodt, head of the state archaeological office. The Enigma machine will then go on display at the museum.
Archaeologists Hunting For Cleopatra’s Tomb Uncover a “Geometric Miracle” Tunnel
The tunnel beneath the temple at Taposiris Magna.
Underneath a temple in the ancient ruined city of Taposiris Magna on the Egyptian coast, archaeologists have uncovered a vast, spectacular tunnel that experts are referring to as a “geometric miracle”.
During ongoing excavations and exploration of the temple, Kathleen Martinez of the University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and colleagues uncovered the structure 13 meters (43 feet) below the ground. The 2-meter tall tunnel had been hewn through an incredible 1,305 meters (4,281 feet) of sandstone.
Its design, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, is remarkably similar to the 1,036-meter Tunnel of Eupalinos – a 6th century BCE aqueduct on the Greek island of Samos. Often referred to as a marvel of engineering, the conduit was unprecedented in design and construction in its day.
While the Taposiris Magna tunnel isn’t without equal, its engineering is nonetheless just as impressive.
The tunnel resembles another, older tunnel from ancient Greece that was used to transport water.
Parts of the Taposiris Magna tunnel are submerged in water, though putting aside its resemblance to the Eupalinos Tunnel, its purpose is currently unknown.
Martinez, who has been working in Taposiris Magna since 2022 in search of the lost tomb of Cleopatra VII, believes that the tunnel could be a promising lead. Previously, the excavations have yielded clues that seem to point to the famous queen and the last of the Ptolemies.
Taposiris Magna was founded around 280 BCE by Ptolemy II, the son of Alexander the Great’s renowned general and one of Cleopatra’s forebears (she herself ruled from 51 BCE until her death by suicide in 30 BCE).
The temple, the team believes, was dedicated to the god Osiris and his queen, the goddess Isis – the deity with whom Cleopatra courted a strong association. Coins bearing the names and likenesses of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great have been found there, as well as figurines of Isis.
The tunnel is hewn from the Egyptian bedrock.
Burial shafts containing Greco-Roman burials have also been found in the temple. It’s possible that – if they’re to be found there at all – Cleopatra and her husband Mark Antony may have been interred in similar tombs.
It’s too early to tell if the new tunnel could lead to these long-lost tombs, but future work could yield more information.
The next stage will be exploring the nearby Mediterranean sea. Between 320 and 1303 CE, a series of earthquakes hit the coast, causing part of the temple to collapse and be swallowed by the waves.
In addition, excavations had previously revealed a network of tunnels stretching from Lake Mariout to the Mediterranean.
Alabaster heads were also found at the temple site.
Whether or not the tombs are found, a thorough excavation of these ruins could tell us more about the mysterious ancient city. The tunnel has already yielded some treasures: pieces of pottery, and a rectangular block of limestone.
As then-Minister for Antiquities Zahi Hawass said 13 years ago, “If we discover the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, it will be the most important discovery of the 21st century. If we did not discover the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, we made major discoveries here, inside the temple and outside the temple.”
Archaeologists Solve Mystery of 5,600-Year-Old Skull Found in Italian Cave
Natural forces moved a Stone Age woman’s bones through the cavern over time
Some of the marks seen on the woman’s skull predated her death, while others were likely left by natural forces following her burial.
Around 5,600 years ago, a Stone Age woman died in what is now northern Italy. Archaeologists found her skull deep in the Marcel Loubens cave, at the top of a vertical shaft only accessible with special climbing equipment, in 2022.
But while ancient people in the area occasionally buried their dead in caves, no other bones—whether hers or someone else’s—were recovered nearby.
Now, reports Laura Geggel for, researchers say they’ve discovered how the woman’s head ended up in that hard-to-reach space. As detailed in the journal PLOS One, the team suggests that natural forces, including opening sinkholes, mudslides and floods of water, moved it through the cave system over time.
The new findings offer a remarkable amount of detail about the ancient woman, as well as the fate of her skull after her death. Led by Maria Giovanna Belcastro, an archaeologist at the University of Bologna, the researchers found that the 24- to 35-year-old died sometime between 3630 and 3380 B.C., during Italy’s Eneolithic period, or Copper Age. As George Dvorsky notes for Gizmodo, she suffered from health problems, including nutritional deficiencies and an endocrine disorder.
Humans living in the region during the Copper Age shifted to an agricultural lifestyle marked by rising population density and an increasingly grain-based diet. This change meant more exposure to pathogens and parasites, as well as less varied sources of sustenance.
Reports that the skull’s owner had underdeveloped tooth enamel, suggesting childhood health problems, and cavities that may have been the result of her high-carbohydrate diet. She also had dense spots on her skull that may have been benign tumors.
The researchers had to use special climbing equipment to reach the skull.
Other than a missing jawbone, the skull was incredibly well preserved, enabling the authors to study it in detail with the help of microscopes, a CT scanner and a 3-D replica.
The analysis found evidence of some kind of procedure, possibly a surgery, performed on the woman when she was alive. The team posits that someone applied a red ocher pigment around the injury, possibly for therapeutic or symbolic purposes.
Many of the marks on the skull date to after the woman’s death. Some seem to come from the removal of flesh from the skull—a common procedure in many ancient societies.
As Garry Shaw reported for Science magazine in 2022, farmers living on Italy’s east coast 7,500 years ago removed muscle tissue from the deceased’s bones and transported them to caves for burial, possibly as part of a year-long mourning ritual.
Other damage to the skull appears to have occurred through natural processes, which also left the bones encrusted in sediment.
“After being treated and laid to rest in a burial place, the skull of this corpse rolled away, most likely moved by water and mud down the slope of a sinkhole and into the cave,” say the authors in a statement. “Later, continued sinkhole activity created the modern structure of the cave, with the bone still preserved within.”
The researchers add that the new find extends scientists’ understanding of the varied funerary practices of ancient people in the area.
Christian Meyer, a specialist in the archaeology of violence at the OsteoArchaeological Research Center in Germany who was not involved in the research, tells that “case studies like this are important to show the huge variety of postmortem episodes that can actually happen to skeletal remains, initiated by natural or anthropogenic [human-caused] factors.”
