Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

TRAGIC REMAINS OF POMPEII CHILD WHO TRIED TO SHELTER FROM VOLCANO FOUND AT ‘GRAND BATHS’

Leave a comment

Tragic remains of Pompeii child who tried to shelter from volcano found at ‘grand baths’

The bones of Pompeii child were discovered in the ruined building site of the city’s central baths where they sought shelter from Mount Vesuvius’ eruption.

The magnificent spas were intended as a jewel in the crown of Pompeii, but were buried before they were completed by the volcano. The central baths were opened for modern visitors to the famous Roman town.

The marble pillars and blocks of the building remain where they were abandoned when the town was submerged in 79 AD by the pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius.

The child is thought to have died around the age of eight

Archeological director of Pompeii, Massimo Osanna, told the AFP that the architects who designed the baths were inspired by Emperor Nero’s thermal bath in rome. The rooms were bigger and lighter here, with pools of marble, ‘ however he said.

The Central Baths lie in an area that has been restored as part of the so-called Great Pompeii Project, which began restoring the city in 2022 after the collapse of the 2000-year-old ‘House of the Gladiators, which had sparked worldwide outrage.

Archaeologist Alberta Martellone and colleagues analysed the skeleton of the child unearthed from the bathhouse, who is thought to have been around 8–10 years old. ‘It was an emotionally charged dig,’ said Dr Martellone. ‘He or she was looking for shelter and found death instead.’

‘[The excavation] was also moving from an architectural point of view, because it is unusual to find a building so large — with such ample rooms — in this densely built up city. It transmits a sense of grandiosity,’ she added.

The construction site with its small skeleton, she concluded, ‘is a sign of life interrupted, on more than one level.’

The city’s original public bathhouses were smaller, darker and often overcrowded and the new complex would have provided a more luxurious setting for all those who could afford it — most citizens, but not slaves.

The bath house never got to be used by Pompeii’s ancient inhabitant
The central baths were opened to modern-day visitors to the famous ancient Roman town
Excavators found grand mosaic tiles and pillars

Recent digs at Pompeii have offered up several impressive finds, including an inscription uncovered last year that proved the city near Naples was destroyed after October 17, 79 AD — and not on  24 as had previously been thought.

In October previous year, archaeologists discovered a vivid fresco- depicting an armour-clad gladiator standing victorious as his wounded opponent gushed blood — that had been painted in a tavern believed to have housed fighters and prostitutes.

Along with the newly-unearthed baths, visitors to Pompeii can now visit a small house sporting a racy fresco depicting the Roman god Jupiter, disguised as a swan, impregnating the Greek mythological figure of Queen Leda.

Along with the newly-unearthed baths, visitors to Pompeii can now visit a small house sporting a racy fresco, pictured, depicting the Roman god Jupiter, disguised as a swan, impregnating the Greek mythological figure of Queen Leda

Across the cobbled Via del Vesuvio, the striking House of the Golden Cupids — believed to have belonged to the wealthy Gnaeus Poppaeus Habitus — has been reopened following renovation work on its mosaic floors.

While treasure hunters regularly pillaged Pompeii across the centuries — in hope of recovering precious jewels or valuable artefacts — whole areas have still yet to be explored by modern-day archaeologists.

Each discovery helps researchers understand not only what life was like in the ancient city, but also what happened in its dramatic final hours as the skies turned to fire and ash, Osanna said.

Although the partially EU-funded Grand Pompeii project will be winding up at the end of 2022, the Italian government will be providing 32 million euros (£27 million / $35 million) in order for digs at the ancient site to continue.

Although the partially EU-funded Grand Pompeii project will be winding up in previous year, the Italian government will be providing 32 million euros (£27 million / $35 million) in order for digs at the ancient site

The ‘biggest challenge’ to preserving the vulnerable UNESCO world heritage site are the violent weather events being caused by climate change, Professor Osanna said.

Each discovery helps researchers understand not only what life was like in the ancient city, but also what happened in its dramatic final hours as the skies turned to fire and ash, Osanna said

The ruined city in southern Italy is the second most visited tourist site in the country — after the Colosseum in Rome — with just under four million visitors in previous year.

EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

Pyramids Discovered In Russia ‘Twice’ As Old As Egyptian Could Rewrite Human History

Leave a comment

Pyramids Discovered In Russia ‘Twice’ As Old As Egyptian Could Rewrite Human History

The discovery of the world’s earliest pyramids on the Kola Peninsula may confirm the existence of an ancient civilisation on Russian territory.

He discovery of the world’s earliest pyramids on the Kola Peninsula may confirm the existence of an ancient civilisation on Russian territory. The civilization likely predates the Egyptian civilization by a long time. Archaeological excavations of the Kola Peninsula’s pyramids, which are believed to be at least two times older than Egyptian pyramids, have been resumed last year. It is still not known by whom or how they were built.

The Mystery of The Pyramids of Kola Peninsula

The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula located in the Murmansk area of Russia’s European portion. The Barents and White Seas flow across it. The area is around 100,000 square kilometres. The north has tundra vegetation, whereas the south has forest-tundra and taiga. The peninsula’s climate is somewhat chilly all the year.

The extraordinary discovery of the world’s oldest pyramids on the Kola Peninsula indicates the existence of the legendary Hyperborea. The Kola Peninsula has recently become a fascinating place for scientific researchers and enthusiasts.

Many of the scientists who made a scientific expedition to this enigmatic place believe that the Kola peninsula may be the ancestral home to Earth’s most ancient civilization. Scientists’ discoveries of step pyramids and massive stone slabs that were precisely cut 9000-40000 years ago provide compelling evidence for this incredible idea.

Were The Hyperboreans Responsible For The Kola Pyramids?

Archaeologists have studied intriguing pyramid structures on the Kola peninsula, which have the potential to rewrite our history. The pyramids have been built with precision and are thought to be at least 9,000 years old, which could be even older than Göbekli Tepe, the world’s oldest temple.

The earliest known investigation of the Kola pyramids took place in the early 1920s, when Russian scholar Alexander Vasilyevich Barchenko (1881–1938) arrived with a scientific team to explore the enigmatic, undiscovered ancient monuments in Russia’s unexplored part. However, Barchenko was not a mainstream scientist, and to date, his beliefs are controversial, as well as intriguing at the same time.

Barchenko became persuaded that the Kola pyramids were built by the lost civilisation of Hyperborea, a mythological island according to the ancient Greeks. Hecataeus of Miletus (550 BC-476 BC), the earliest recorded Greek historian, believed the Hyperborean holy site located “on an island in the ocean…beyond the country of the Celts.”

According to Diodorus Siculus (90 BC-30 BC), a Greek historian, God Apollo visited the unknown country of Hyperborea on his swan drawn chariot on a regular basis.

According to the Diodorus’ statement in Historic Library, Greek goddess Leto, the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother of Apollo and Artemis, was born in Hyperborea, and as a result, the locals worship Apollo more than any other God. They are, in a sense, his priests, because they constantly praise him and lavish him with awards.

It is also said that the moon appears very close to the earth in this island, that certain eminences of a terrestrial form can be clearly seen in it, that Apollo visits the island once every nineteen years, during which period the stars complete their revolutions, and that for this reason, the Greeks distinguish the cycle of nineteen years by the name of “the great year.”

Hyperborea has never been discovered, but that, according to many theorists, doesn’t imply it didn’t exist. Hyperborea’s submerged ancient remains may yet be unearthed. Could the abandoned Kola Pyramids in Russia’s North be the remnants of a long-lost, sophisticated ancient civilization about which we know almost nothing?

According to Barchenko’s view, people came from the northern areas around 12,000 years ago. A massive flood drove Aryan tribes residing there to flee the area during the so-called Golden Age, which occurred around 10,000-12,000 years ago. The Aryan tribes left the Kola Peninsula and travelled to the south.

After studying Masonic literature, the late Russian scientist gradually came to believe that the Hyperboreans were a highly sophisticated society capable of atomic energy, levitation, and flight. He also believed that Sami shamans living on the Kola Peninsula were the keepers of Hyperborea’s old wisdom.

Bashenko was a keen student of religious and mystical matters, and while his hypotheses were never proven, they are nevertheless of considerable interest to scholars of alternative ancient history. On 2022 25, 1938, Bashenko was killed in Moscow as part of the Great Purge.

Inside The Kola Pyramids, There Are Unknown Voids And Chambers

Later in 2022, a Russian expedition team attempted to investigate the Kola Pyramids. Among these experts were Pulkovo Observatory press secretary Sergey Smirnov, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, Valery Chudinov, Professor of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and Dmitry Subetto, Professor, doctor of geological and geographical sciences.

The voyage was more arduous and risky than the researchers had anticipated. The Kola Pyramids are in a secluded area, and the inhabitants, the Lapps, were hesitant to show them the route.

According to one of the team members, Russian experts viewed the pyramids from a helicopter, but owing to extensive foliage, not all buildings were visible from the air.

Their chopper nearly crashed, but they made it to the old site and studied these strange buildings. The Kola pyramids, according to Russian geologists, are two 50-meter-high structures linked by a bridge and aligned to the cardinal points.

“We carried a unique device, the most sophisticated geophysical equipment – the Oko georadar – on the expedition,” one of the researchers explained.

Like an x-ray, the instrument “shines through” the interior space of any item. The geologists reached an unambiguous conclusion: the heights are anthropogenic in origin; hence, they are not natural hills, but man-made pyramids ― the product of human hands. Inside the pyramids, there are gaps and undiscovered rooms.

EUROPE, SERBIA, WORLD

30,000-YEAR-OLD BOSNIAN PYRAMIDS BUILT WITH MAN-MADE CEMENT

Leave a comment

30,000-Year-Old Bosnian Pyramids Built With Man-Made Cement

The New Era Times, notes that independent research from five different materials institutes indicates that high-quality man-made concrete construction material is used in the Bosnian Pyramids, eliminating all skeptical claims about the authenticity of the Bosnian Pyramids.

The Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun’s controversial site has a team of over 200 interdisciplinary scientists from around the world conducting scientific research not only on the origin and age of building materials, but also on how the energy of the pyramid was used by ancient scientists for humanity-beneficial applications ranging from geothermal transport, climatology, and advancements in human physiology and health.

The results of the chemical and diffractometry laboratory analysis carried out on sandstone and conglomerate blocks taken from the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun, published by the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, show that the samples are an inert material with a binding similar to that found in ancient Roman concrete.

These findings have been confirmed by a sample analysis conducted at the University of Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In a separate independent test, Professor Joseph Davidovits, renowned French Scientist, member of the International Association of Egyptologists and author confirms this claim. “I performed electron microscopic analysis of the sample and I propose the geopolymer chemistry that was used to make this is ancient concrete,” wrote Prof Davidovits.

He further adds that the sample is composed of “a calcium/potassium-based geopolymer cement and that although he cannot date the sample, he can discern that it is not modern concrete, but more like the technique used by the Egyptians 3500 years ago.”

In his book,The Pyramids: an Enigma Solved, Davidovits presents the current knowledge of pyramid construction that is supported by scientific, historical, and linguistic studies which prove that the Egyptian pyramids were constructed using agglomerated stone (limestone cast like concrete).

The research on pyramid technology has long suspected that pyramid energy involvesscience and machinery far more advanced than what we currently have .

Christopher Dunn, author of The Giza Power Plant, published in 1996 explains that the pyramids were ancient energy machines, currently a popular theory amongst researchers.

The pyramids of Bosnia have the same elements described in the Giza pyramids that define the structure of an ancient power generator system.

After visiting Bosnia in 2022, Chris Dunn stated, “While I was in Visoko, experts from various disciplines showed excitement on the result of their studies of the so-called pyramid hill. Hopefully, in due course, clear signs of ancient precision engineering will eventually be discovered.

“Now in 2022, the Bosnian archeological site is further excavated and new scientific evidence has emerged proving that ancient precision engineering was indeed used to build the Bosnian Pyramids.

Further evidence of concrete being used in pyramid construction is shown by the work of Professor Michel Barsoum, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University, and Professor Gilles Hug, of the French National Aerospace Research Agency who have found scientific evidence that parts of the Great Pyramids of Giza were built using an early form of concrete.

This debunks an age old myth that the pyramids were built using only cut limestone blocks and proves the theory that concrete and nanotechnology was used by the ancients.

Since it was discovered in 2022 by Dr. Sam SemirOsmanagich Ph.D., director of Center for Anthropology and Archaeology at the American University in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Bosnian Pyramid complex has been stonewalled by mainstream archeologists until recent scientific evidence which makes it impossible to deny the authenticity of this history changing discovery.

“The team of interdisciplinary scientists conducting studies on the cosmic energy enigma at the archeological site in Bosniaare on a relentless pursuit to uncover the wisdom from the ancient culture that left this behind,” states Dr. SamOsmanagich. “There are facts about physical phenomenon that can be scientifically verified, yet there remain many unanswered questions unexplainable using our current recorded history.”

“Although tens of thousands of pyramids have been discovered across the planet, none have the construction quality and date back as far as the ones in Bosnia,” states Osmanagich. “Bosnia is the original pyramid, the oldest and largest ever constructed.

It has an exact zero degree North orientation and is potentially the key to releasing information about ancient technology that can free the world of its dependence on fossil fuel along with offering the possibility of finding astounding medical breakthroughs in the scientific community.”

ASIA, EUROPE, WORLD

A Million-Year-Old Human Skull Has Prompted Scientists To Reconsider Early Human Evolution

Leave a comment

A Million-Year-Old Human Skull Has Prompted Scientists To Reconsider Early Human Evolution


The discovery of a 1.8-million-year-old skull of a human ancestor buried under a medieval Georgian village provides a vivid picture of early evolution and indicates our family tree may have fewer branches than some believe, scientists say.

The fossil is the most complete pre-human skull uncovered. With other partial remains previously found at the rural site, it gives researchers the earliest evidence of human ancestors moving out of Africa and spreading north to the rest of the world, according to a study in the journal Science.

The skull and other remains offer a glimpse of a population of pre-humans of various sizes living at the same time—something that scientists had not seen before for such an ancient era. This diversity bolsters one of two competing theories about the way our early ancestors evolved, spreading out more like a tree than a bush.

Nearly all of the previous pre-human discoveries have been fragmented bones, scattered over time and locations—like a smattering of random tweets of our evolutionary history. The findings at Dmanisi are more complete, weaving more of a short story. Before the site was found, the movement from Africa was put at about 1 million years ago.

When examined with the earlier Georgian finds, the skull “shows that this special immigration out of Africa happened much earlier than we thought and a much more primitive group did it,” said study lead author David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgia National Museum. “This is important to understanding human evolution.”

For years, some scientists have said humans evolved from only one or two species, much like a tree branches out from a trunk, while others say the process was more like a bush with several offshoots that went nowhere.

This photo taken Oct. 2022, in Tbilisi, Georgia, shows a pre-human skull, that

Even bush-favoring scientists say these findings show one single species nearly 2 million years ago at the former Soviet republic site. But they disagree that the same conclusion can be said for bones found elsewhere, such as Africa. However, Lordkipanidze and colleagues point out that the skulls found in Georgia are different sizes but considered to be are the same species. So, they reason, it’s likely the various skulls found in different places and times in Africa may not be different species, but variations in one species.

In this photo taken Oct. 2022, ancient skulls and jaws of pre-human ancesto

“Danny DeVito, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal are the same species,” Lordkipanidze said.

The adult male skull found wasn’t from our species, Homo sapiens. It was from an ancestral species—in the same genus or class called Homo—that led to modern humans. Scientists say the Dmanisi population is likely an early part of our long-lived primary ancestral species, Homo erectus.

Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley wasn’t part of the study but praised it as “the first good evidence of what these expanding hominids looked like and what they were doing.”

Fred Spoor at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, a competitor and proponent of a busy family tree with many species disagreed with the study’s overall conclusion, but he lauded the Georgia skull discovery as critical and even beautiful.

“It really shows the process of evolution in action,” he said.

Spoor said it seems to have captured a crucial point in the evolutionary process where our ancestors transitioned from Homo habilis to Homo erectus—although the study authors said that depiction is going a bit too far.

The researchers found the first part of the skull, a large jaw, below a medieval fortress in 2000. Five years later—on Lordkipanidze’s 42nd birthday—they unearthed the well-preserved skull, gingerly extracted it, putting it into a cloth-lined case and popped champagne. It matched the jaw perfectly. They were probably separated when our ancestor lost a fight with a hungry carnivore, which pulled apart his skull and jaw bones, Lordkipanidze said.

The skull was from an adult male just shy of 5 feet (1.5 meters) with a massive jaw and big teeth, but a small brain, implying limited thinking capability, said study co-author Marcia Ponce de Leon of the University of Zurich. It also seems to be the point where legs are getting longer, for walking upright, and smaller hips, she said.

“This is a strange combination of features that we didn’t know before in early Homo,” Ponce de Leon said.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

Archaeologists Unearthed the Tomb of a Giant Warrior, Horses and a Witch in Germany

Leave a comment

Archaeologists Unearthed the Tomb of a Giant Warrior, Horses and a Witch in Germany

Near a cemetery in Theiben, a small village in Germany an incredible finding was made. Two bodies were buried next to each other.

They both had interesting characteristics, one of them was massive, and the other,a small and petite, believed to be a woman, or a witch.

According to archeologists, these 2 findings belong to the Merovingian era which lasted from the fifth to the eight century.

First thing to look at is the Giant. The skeleton is around 8 feet tall, in a time when humanity was around 4 feet tall. So basically twice as tall as a normal human being.

And a sword next to him, 3.5 feet long, indicating the strength of the creature.

She on the other hand was tied up and had an iron bar in her chest which is a clear sign that she was believed to be a witch at the time. She was believed to be 18 years old and she was buried with her face down.

Face down burial is a method used to bury witches and evildoers so that they are sent straight to hell in the after life.

4 horse skeletons were unearthed as well, an ancient belief was to bury a warrior with its horse, so he can continue riding it in the after life.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND 300,000-YEAR-OLD ELEPHANT SKELETON IN GERMANY

Leave a comment

Archaeologists Find 300,000-Year-Old Elephant Skeleton in Germany

According to recent findings, archeologists have discovered the nearly complete skeleton of a massive and now extinct elephant that lived in what is now the northern German city of Schöningen about 300,000 years ago.

While this elephant – the straight tusked Eurasian elephant (Palaeo-loxodon antiquus) – presumably died of old age, meat eaters immediately consumed it; bite marks in the bones of this elephant show carnivores feasting on the dead animal, and bones and flint flakes found close to the elephant mean that people scavenged everything left, the researchers said.

Eurasian straight-tusked elephant died by the shores of a lake in Schoningen, Lower Saxony

“The Stone Age hunters probably cut meat, tendons and fat from the carcass,” project researcher Jordi Serangeli, head of the excavation in Schöningen, said in a statement. The elephant died on the western side of a vast lake, a hint that it perished from natural causes.

Head of the excavation, Jordi Serangeli, wipes sediment away from the elephant’s foot

Ivo Verheijen, a Doctoral student of Archaeozoology and Paleontology at the University of Tübingen, said that “elephants always stay nearby and in the water while they are sick or aged.”In addition, the elephant, a female, had worn teeth, suggesting it was old when it died, he said.

Researchers have found the remains of at least 10 elephants dating to the Lower Paleolithic-also known as the Old Stone Age(about 3 million to 300,000 years ago)-over the past several years at Schöningen.

But this new find is by far the most complete. The remains include 7.5-foot-long (2.3 meters) tusks – which are 125% longer than the average 6-foot-long (1.8 m) tusk of a modern African elephant, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

The researchers also found the complete lower jaw, numerous vertebrae and ribs, large bones from three of its four legs and all five of its delicate hyoid bones, which are found in the neck and help support the tongue and voice box.

This P. antiquus elephant had a shoulder height of about 10.5 feet (3.2 m) and would have weighed about 7.5 tons (6.8 metric tons). “It was therefore larger than today’s African elephant cows,” Verheijen said.

Near these remains, researchers found 30 small flint flakes and two long bone tools. Micro flakes embedded in these two bones suggests the ancient humans who scavenged the elephant used them to sharpen stone tools (called knapping) at the site, said project researcher Bárbara Rodríguez Álvarez, an archaeologist at the University of Tübingen.

Of note, the ancient humans who likely scavenged the elephant were not Homo sapiens. The earliest evidence of H. sapiens in Europe dates to about 45,000 years ago, according to excavations at a cave in Bulgaria, a study published few month ago in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution found.

Instead, these human scavengers were likely H. heidelbergensis, an extinct human relative who lived about 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, the researchers in Germany said.

Wildlife watering hole

The lake was a popular hole for elephants, according to several of their preserved footprints just 330 feet (100 m) from the new elephant excavation site.

“It must have been a small bunch of adults and younger animals,” said Flavio Altamura in the statement, a researcher at the Department of Antiquity at Sapienza University in Rome. “The big creatures marched around the lakeshore and their footprints sunk into the water , leaving triangular tracks behind.”

These elephants would have lived in a comfortable climate, compar-able to today’s; about 300,000 years ago, Europe was in the Reinsdorf interglacial, a warmer period bookended by two glacial (or colder) periods. Other animals thrived there, too.

About 20 kinds of large animals lived around the lake, including lions, bears, saber-toothed cats, rhinoceroses, wild horses, deer and large cattle, according to excavations. “The wealth of wildlife was similar to that of modern Africa,” Serangeli said.

All of these animals attracted ancient human hunters. Archaeologists have found the remains of 10 wooden spears and one throwing stick from 300,000 years ago, according to a study published online April 20 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

A model of a straight-tusked elephant foraging with its calf is pictured above

The new finding was uncovered in a collaborative effort between the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen in Germany and the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage. The research had published in the magazine “Archäologie in Deutschland” (Archaeology in Germany) and was presented at a press conference in Schöningen on May .

EUROPE, WORLD

4,000 year old gold-adorned skeleton found near Windsor

Leave a comment

4,000 year old gold-adorned skeleton found near Windsor

Archaeologists, excavating near the Royal Borough, have discovered the 4400 year old gold-adorned skeleton of an upper class woman who was almost certainly a member of the local ruling elite.

She is the earliest known woman adorned with such treasures ever found in Britain.

The individual, aged around 40, was buried, wearing a necklace of folded sheet gold, amber and lignite beads, just a century or two after the construction of Stonehenge some 60 miles to the south-west.

Even the buttons, thought to have been used to secure the upper part of her now long-vanished burial garment, were made of amber. She also appears to have worn a bracelet of lignite beads.

The archaeologist in charge of the excavation, Gareth Chaffey of Wessex Archaeology, believes that she may have been a person of power – perhaps even the prehistoric equivalent of a princess or queen.

It’s known that in southern Britain, some high status men of that era – the Copper Age – had gold possessions, but this is the first time archaeologists have found a woman of that period being accorded the same sort of material status.

It’s thought that the gold used to make the jewellery probably came originally from hundreds of miles to the west – and that the amber almost certainly came from Britain’s North Sea coast. The lignite (a form of coal) is also thought to have come from Britain.

The funeral rite for the potential prehistoric royal may have involved her family arranging her body so that, in death, she clasped a beautiful pottery drinking vessel in her hands. The 25 centimetre tall ceramic beaker was decorated with geometric patterns.

Of considerable significance was the fact that she was buried with her head pointing towards the south.

Men and women from the Stonehenge era were often interred in opposing directions – men’s heads pointing north and women’s heads pointing south.

Europe-wide archaeological and anthropological research over recent years suggests that women may have been associated with the warm and sunny south, while mere men may have seen themselves as embodying the qualities of the colder harder north!

The woman’s skeleton and jewellery were found 18 months ago – but were kept strictly under wraps until now, following the completion of initial analyses of the woman’s bones – and metallurgical analysis of the gold.

The discovery is part of a still ongoing excavation which started a decade ago. The elite gold-and-amber-adorned Copper Age woman is merely the most spectacular of dozens of discoveries made at the site – including four early Neolithic houses, 40 Bronze Age burials, three Bronze Age farm complexes and several Iron Age settlements.

The excavations are being funded by the international cement company CEMEX, whose gravel quarry near Windsor is the site of the discoveries.

Archaeologist Gareth Chaffey of Wessex Archaeology, who is directing the ongoing excavation, said that the woman unearthed at the site “was probably an important person in her society, perhaps holding some standing which gave her access to prestigious, rare and exotic items.

She could have been a leader, a person with power and authority, or possibly part of an elite family – perhaps a princess or queen.”

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

2,100-year-old bubedrial of woman lying on bronze ‘mermaid ‘ unearthed in Greece

Leave a comment

2,100-year-old burial of woman lying on bronze ‘mermaid bed’ unearthed in Greece

A photo of the burial of a woman lying on a bronze bed. She lived sometime during the first century B.C.

Archaeologists have unearthed the ancient burial of a woman lying on a bronze bed near the city of Kozani in northern Greece. It dates to the first century B.C. 

Depictions of mermaids decorate the posts of the bed. The bed also displays an image of a bird holding a snake in its mouth, a symbol of the ancient Greek god Apollo.

The woman’s head was covered with gold laurel leaves that likely were part of a wreath, Areti Chondrogianni-Metoki, director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Kozani, told Live Science in an email. The wooden portions of the bed have decomposed. 

Gold threads, possibly from embroidery, were found on the woman’s hands, Chondrogianni-Metoki said. Additionally, four clay pots and a glass vessel were buried alongside the remains. No other people were buried with her. 

This image shows how the bed would have looked before the burial. It is made largely of bronze but had some wooden parts that have since decayed away.

Archaeologists are now analyzing the skeleton to determine the woman’s health, age when she died and possible cause of death.

The artifacts found with her suggest that she likely came from a wealthy background, and may have belonged to a royal family.

“We do not know much about the history of this area [during the first century B.C.],” Chondrogianni-Metoki told .

Thousands of years ago, Kozani was near an important city called Mavropigi (the site is now a village) that housed a sanctuary dedicated to Apollo, Chondrogianni-Metoki said.

This mermaid head was found on the bed.

Historical records show that during the first century B.C., Roman control and influence in Greece was on the rise. The Romans destroyed the city of Corinth in 146 B.C. and sacked Athens in 86 B.C.

In 48 B.C. a crucial battle in northern Greece known as the Battle of Pharsalus saw the army of Julius Caesar defeat a force led by Pompey; the victory resulted in Caesar becoming the de facto ruler of Rome. 

It’s unclear when exactly in the first century B.C. this woman lived or if she would have witnessed or heard of any of those historic events. The woman’s remains are currently housed at the Archaeological Museum of Aiani in Greece.

 contacted scholars not affiliated with the research for further insights on the discovery, but none were available to offer comment at the time of publication.

The bronze bed burial was found in 2021. In 2022, another bed burial was found in a nearby cemetery that had an elderly man buried on the remains of a bed made of iron and wood. That burial dated to the fourth century B.C.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Stunning 700-year-old giant cave found behind a rabbit hole in the British countryside.

Leave a comment

Stunning 700-year-old giant cave found behind a rabbit hole in the British countryside.

An apparently ordinary rabbit’s hole in a farmer’s field leads to an underground sanctuary said to have been used by devotees of a medieval religious order – but is everything what it seems?

According to local legend, the Caynton Caves, near Shifnal, in Shropshire, were used by followers of the Knights Templar in the 17th Century.

Located less than a metre underground, they appear to be untouched structurally.

Their original purpose is shrouded in mystery, but Historic England, which describes the caves as a “grotto”, believes they were probably built in the late 18th or early 19th Century – hundreds of years after the Templar order was dissolved.

In its report, it said the caves appear to be used for “black magic rites” by modern-day visitors.

Michael Scott, from Birmingham, went to photograph the caves after seeing a video of them online.

He said: “I traipsed over a field to find it, but if you didn’t know it was there you would just walk right past it. Considering how long it’s been there it’s in amazing condition, it’s like an underground temple.”

The tunnel leads to a network of walkways and arches carved out of sandstone, as well as a font.

Mr Scott said the cave was “quite cramped” and those nearing 6ft (1.8m) tall would have to bend down to fit in. Some chambers are so small that those exploring have to enter them on hands and knees.

“I had to crouch down and once I was in it was completely silent. There were a few spiders in there but that was it. It was raining so the slope down was quite sludgy but inside the cave was bone dry,” he added.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Huge Celtic Iron Age tomb with stunning artifacts discovered in France!

Leave a comment

Huge Celtic Iron Age tomb with stunning artifacts discovered in France!

There’s a massive funerary chamber in France where Archaeologists are doing a research for what they believe was a 5th century BC Celtic Prince holding his chariot, a bronze made cauldron, a vase with a Greek god of wine and ecstasy painted on it, a huge knife and few other artifacts.

These treasure worth found artifacts in the Champagne region are “fitting for one of the highest elite of the end of the first Iron Age”, according to the French archaeological agency INRAP in the French-English “The Connexion” newspaper.

These Archaeologists, from the French National agency – INRAP, dug 40m (131feet) underground to find these valuables on the edge of a park near Lavau.

The tomb is bigger than the cathedral in nearby Troyes, the article reported. It covered nearly 7655sq. yards and was surrounded by a palisade and ditch when found in tumulus (tumulus is a burial mound or barrow).

Their page on Facebook claims that the center of the almost 44-yard diameter tumulus has his chariot “at the heart of a vast funeral chamber” of 15,3 yards squared.

Even though they’ve found only some parts of a skeleton, the Archaeologists haven’t still identified the princes’ remains. They only think that they’ve found a body of a princes’ relative among with some funeral urns and other graves, and claim that they’ve already dated some of the ashes in the urns to 1400 BC.

The tomb was found when they were inspecting the ground in order to explore it and prepare it for a new commercial center construction. The president of INRAP, Dominique Garcia, said they were sure the tomb was a princes’ because of the big knife they’ve found in it.

As reported, the Archaeologists consider the most important find was the 1meter-diameter bronze cauldron. Its 4 handles were decorated with Achelous’ head (Achelous is the river god of ancient Greeks). It also had 8 lionesses’ heads, and a ceramic oinochoe wine jug with Dionysus under a grapevine painted in it.

They assume that the wine set was a centerpiece of an aristocratic Celtic banquet. As INRAP reported, it is a “Greco-Latin” wine set which confirms that the Celts and folks from the Mediterranean region were making exchanges.

“At the time [of the burial] Mediterranean traders were extending their economic range, seeking slaves and precious metals and jewels. The Celts, who controlled the main communication routes along the Seine, Rhône, Saône, Rhine and Danube, benefited from the exchanges to get prestigious objects,” the Connexion article reported.

The Celtic peoples are in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland.

The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology says: “At one time, however, the Celts were spread over a large part of the [European] continent, and in 278 BC one roving band even penetrated as far east as Asia Minor, where they gave their name to Galatia.

Until the rise of the Roman power, the Celts were a force to be reckoned with. Rome itself had been sacked by them in 385 BC, a historical fact not forgotten by the legionnaires who gave Julius Caesar victory between 59 and 49 BC over the Celtic tribes living in Gaul, present-day France.

Although largely incorporated into the Roman Empire, the Celts continued to worship their own gods and goddesses right up to the time of the official adoption by the Romans of the Christian faith.”

Cuchulainn of Ireland was one of the most important Celtic heroes. Died at an early age he was slain in a heroic defense of Ulster.

Dagda (means “the good god”) was the chief Celtic God of the Irish, apparently, was very wise, knowledgeable and a great magician. As it is known, Dagda could slay his enemies with one end of his club and heal and resurrect his allies with the other. An inexhaustible bounty could’ve been served up by his magical cauldron.

During a truce before the second battle of Magh Tuireadh, Dagda visited the enemies camp – Fomorii. As the Fomorii required, he was supposed to eat a porridge of flour, fat, milk, pigs and goats, that all together could’ve fed up to 50 men, or instead, they would’ve kill him.