Desert Kites: Mysterious geoglyphs built thousands of years ago
During the 1920s, pilots of the Royal Air Force who flew over the deserts of Israel, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, saw some strange line shapes scattered all over the area.
They named them “Desert Kites”. Seen from above the lines resembled flying kites. This was a new discovery for the western world, but the local Bedouin population already knew about them for thousands of years. The natives called them “Works of the Old Men”.
Desert Kites: Mysterious geoglyphs built thousands of years ago
Most of the kites are composed of two stone walls with variable thickness and height, that are wider at the beginning and get narrow at the end, forming a V shape.
The length of the walls is usually a few hundred meters, but can stretch up to a few kilometers The narrow opening at the end of the funnel leads to an enclosure or a pit.
The enclosures have many shapes and sizes: they can be circular, triangular or star-shaped and range from a few hundred square meters to more than ten hectares.
There are small stone cells with higher walls joined to the external part of the enclosure. They are circular or square in shape. Some kites have one cell, but their number can go up to several dozen.
Stone walls of a desert kite
Circle enclosures with cells on the outside
Desert kite in Wadi Eshel
It is commonly accepted that the stone kites were used for hunting, to gather the animals together, making them an easier prey. Few years ago, a team of archeologists found a big deposit of Persian gazelle bones dating from 4th millennium BC, from a site in northeastern Syria.
This provides a direct evidence that the kites were used for hunting gazelles in post-Neolithic times. The Kites, organized in chains that facing the same direction, lie along migration routes that ran from Syria to Saudi Arabia. This suggests that the people who created them had good knowledge of animal behavior.
The majority of kites were built between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, although some of the oldest structures are dated as far back as 8000 BC.
Desert kite in Wadi Eshel
However, recent access to high-resolution satellite images has revealed even more kites exist than previously believed. They are spread over a huge area that extends from the Arabian Peninsula to the Aral Sea.
This new discovery deepens the mystery of the “kites phenomenon”. Solving this puzzle (according to mainstream archeology) means finding the answer to some fundamental questions as animal economy, the disappearance of species, sustainable development and even the development of urbanism.
Satellite view of a desert kite in the Jordanian Harrat showing very long stone walls.
Archaeologists discover giant defensive minefield from the roman iron age
Archaeologists have unearthed a massive structure in Lolland that is believed to have been used to ward off an attacking army back in the Roman Iron Age. So far, 770 meters of the structure have been detected.
In 2022 a team of archaeologists from the Museum Lolland-Falster in Denmark discovered a vast ancient “hole belt”: a defense land work featuring over 1000 long lines and rows of small holes dug into the ground.
According to archaeologist and Museum Inspector, Bjørnar Mage, talking to TV2 EAST , this hole belt was designed to slow down hostile advancing armies from the south coast of Lolland and it was built during the reign of the Roman Empire in Europe, and while 770 meters of the belt have been measured, museum staff estimate it may be up to twice as big.
The hole belt is thought to have been located about a kilometer from the coast between two impassable wetlands meaning attacking enemies advancing into Lolland, would have been seriously hampered, says Bjørnar Måge.
Since 2022, two smaller excavations have studied the hole belt but this recent excavation was the first to illustrate how large this ancient military feature actually was, and revealed that it had built at one time in a major constriction project.
The massive structure may have stretched 1.5 km across Lolland.
Tomb of the Pagan Prince
The hole belt might have been built in the days leading up to a major battle , but maybe it was a reaction to a concrete threat where you “wanted to make sure you had time to defend yourself against an advancing enemy,” says Bjørnar Mage in a Nyheder article. And this apparent immediacy in the building of the structure is supported in the fact no evidence has been discovered that the belt was ever maintained after its construction and it appears that it had been left to lapse.
So far, three-hole belts have been found to the east of the main belt, but a number have been found in Jutland. However, this belt is much wider than any of the Jutland examples.
Bjørnar Måge believes the building of the hole belt required “considerable strength and hinterland” and that it was beyond the abilities of the average local farmer, leading him to suspect that “a local warlord or prince” was behind the construction.” He said it takes “time and a lot of manpower” to build such a large defense force and this is only something that would make sense if there was a “major man behind it.”
Perhaps lending weight to this line of thinking, not far from the hole belt in the town of Hoby near Dannemare, archaeologists discovered a stone built tomb dating from the Roman Iron Age but the researchers have not yet been able to associate the two sites yet.
Hundreds of markers map out the elements of the hole belt.
Imagine For A Second, The Horror Of Being Trapped In A Hole Belt
The coasts of Denmark during the late Iron Age were invaded by armies from Norway and Eastern Europe but no historical records exist pertaining to military activities in the north of the country, but the belt indicates a major battle was prepared for.
Putting ancient hole belts in context, Bjørnar Måge compares them with “modern minefields” designed specifically to delay advancing enemy forces. According to writers J.E. and H.W. Kaufmann’s 2018 Classical to Medieval Fortifications in the Lands of the Western Roman Empire, “Caesar’s Lilies”, were Roman-built ditches about 1 meter (3.3ft) deep containing sharpened wooden spikes and Bjørnar Måge, said Viet Cong soldiers used “ Caesar’s lilies” against American soldiers as recently as the Vietnam War.
Example of Roman Lilia at Rough Castle, Antonine Wall.
The archaeologists in Denmark believe the hole belt was designed to delay advancing armies so that the native army could get into the most tactically suitable positions, from where they could “shoot the attackers with arrows from towers” arranged behind the hollow belt.
But at this time no archaeological remains of such towers have been found, says Bjørnar Mage, however, towers were not needed to seriously hamper an advancing Roman army, for example:
Imagine you are on the front line of a Roman army. You’ve just spent eight months advancing into Denmark, sleepless and weary having defended your camp from native guerrilla attacks every night. Your sword is blunted chopping the skeletons of Denmark’s indigenous peoples and you are standing amidst your 6000 brothers in arms when you are deafened with the war cry “We Are Legion” as your field commander signals you to advance into the hole belt.
Tip-toeing around thousands of wooden spikes and deep pits your advance is slow, but you are almost at the other side and stop to take a breath, and to prepare your psychology for another mass-slaughter.
But then, your accumulated worst fears arrive in one nightmarish moment as the Danish infantry begin to thin, making way for their special forces who ride forward through the morning mist: 200 mounted cavalries armed with bows who fringe the hole belt.
Realizing their destiny, panic spreads among your men and most are reduced to whimpering as the sky quickly darkens with thousands of heavy oak, iron-tipped arrows, and for the last time your thoughts turn to your family and the swaying wheat fields from whence you came, and to where you will now return, courtesy of the hole belt.
Unfortunately, due to its environmental circumstances, the Lolland hole belt is rapidly disappearing and Bjørnar Mage said that if the site had been left for as little as five more years “there would probably be nothing left” and he says only the bottom five centimeters of the belt have been preserved in many areas of the structure.
Built Before Stone Henge: Mount Pleasant One of Five Known Mega Henges in Southern England
Mega Henges: Many of us were taught that the Stone Age was filled with hairy cavemen who didn’t have a lot going for them. In fact, the many henges around England attest to the building skills of Neolithic people and at about 2500BC, just before Europeans arrived in Britain, even had a big construction boom.
There are five mega henges in southern England including a henge at the Mount Pleasant Neolithic site near Dorchester, Dorset.
It was built before Stonehenge and consists of a large circle where people went for rituals with large stones and perhaps a wooden structure in the center.
Mount Pleasant Henge dig in the 1970s
A wooden fence made from tree trunks surrounded the henge as well as a bank and a ditch according to theguardian.com. The size of the round concentric henge is enormous, almost sixty two thousand square feet and it was built entirely by people using deer antlers as digging tools.
The Mount Pleasant Neolithic site was first excavated in the early 1970s and researchers believe the time to build the site took anywhere from thirty five years to one hundred and twenty five years with multiple descendants taking over the work but now they suggest it was built WITHIN 35 years.
Mount Pleasant Henge crop marks.
According to lead researcher and lead author of a research paper Tempo of a Mega-henge: A New Chronology for Mount Pleasant, Dorchester, Dorset found at cambridge.org, Susan Greaney of Cardiff University’s School of History, Archaeology and Religion remarked, “The building of Mount Pleasant would have involved a huge number of people digging out the enormous ditches with simple tools like antler picks.
Stone age antler pick found at Mount Pleasant
This was right at the end of the stone age, just before people came from the continent with metal goods, new types of pottery, new styles of burial and so on…” Because dating objects was no where near as effective in 1970, archeologists have been able to use radiocarbon dating to determine that it was probably built in the 26th century BC.
The other mega henges in southern England include Marden Henge, the largest found to date at forty acres which was surrounded by a fence of ten foot tall tree trunks.
Merden Henge
According to nationalgeographic.com, Jim Leary, director of the archaeology field school at the University of Reading, partnered with Historic England and launched a three-year excavation of Marden Henge in 2022.
Artifacts such as an early Bronze Age burial, arrowheads for exhibition rather than hunting and the remains of over thirteen pigs which were most likely cooked and eaten there were discovered. The burial was that of a teenager interred with an amber necklace about four thousand years a
Tells us of a mega henge discovered about two miles from Stonehenge and fifteen times larger beneath the banks of Durrington Walls.
In the foreground is the southern wall of Durrington Walls, a prehistoric site near to Durrington in Wiltshire. In the background of the image is the western wall of the site.
The stones stood almost fifteen feet tall before they were damaged over four thousand years ago when they were buried to form earthen embankments to surround the site. The henge is surrounded by a fifty eight foot long ditch that takes up a mile of land around the henge.
According to megalithic.co.uk, a stone circle in Wiltshire was discovered in 1999 and owns the title for the largest henge circle in the world. The surrounding embankment is almost a full mile long and the inside area is just over twenty eight acres. It is estimated that it took 1.5 million man hours to construct.
Silbury Hill in Avebury, while not a henge in the traditional way, is a part of the Stonehenge complex and is believed to have been built around 2400BC.
It is an artificial mound equal to the size of the Egyptian pyramids but no one knows its original purpose. There are no burials and the mound is just dirt and chalk.
More materials were added over the years adding to the height and the ditch enclosing the mound shows evidence of backfilling and cutting.
On three separate occasions the hill was excavated with tunnels running horizontally and vertically with nothing of interest found.
2,000-yr-old Item Found Buried with Woman Looks Like a Smartphone
A tomb recently excavated in Siberia revealed what at first appeared to be an ancient iPhone on the 2,100-yr-old remains of a woman dubbed ‘Natasha’ by researchers. Found alongside her skeleton, to the amazement and excitement of all, was an item that looked suspiciously like an iPhone.
It’s not, of course — it’s a belt buckle — but the object bears a striking and astonishing similarity to a iPhone. It’s black, and shaped rather like a check book (remember those?) and has beautiful, precious stones laid into its surface. And it was no doubt just as important to the woman who wore it as our smartphones are to us .
It was a fashionable ancient belt buckle made of gemstone jet with inlaid decorations of turquoise, carnelian and mother-of-pearl.
The find was part of a larger excavation, dubbed the “Russian Atlantis.” Skeletons and objects like ‘Natasha’s’ belt buckle date back more than 2,000 years, archaeologists say.
The Siberian Times reported recently that the site was made accessible to archaeologists and other researchers when a massive reservoir was drained during the summer, so researchers could get a look at the relics resting there. The belt buckle is just one of many interesting — and ancient — items found at this “Russian Atlantis.”
The buckle’s precious stones include mother of pearl and turquoise, and even part of an ancient Chinese coin has been carved into it. According to Dr. Pavel Leus, one of the archaeologists on the dig, “Natasha’s burial with a Hunnu-era ‘iPhone’ remains one of the most interesting (items) at this site.” He added, “Hers was the only belt decorated with Chinese Wizhu coins, which helped us to date it.”
Other ancient graves rest close to ‘Natasha,’ including one whom the archaeologists have dubbed ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ The items with which she was buried indicate that she was a designer who worked in leather.
A third set of remains belonged to a woman who was a weaver, researchers confirmed; she had a wooden spindle, inside a sewing kit placed with her.
It’s these kinds of objects, rather like ‘Natasha’s’ so called ‘iPhone,’ that give researchers the clues they need to date the remains accurately.
The site is usually under more than 55 feet of water, according to the Siberian Times. Scientists, historians and archaeologists know they must beat the clock because the reservoir will indeed fill with water again, sooner or later.
They are working feverishly to recover and excavate these rare and historic artifacts before that happens.Elsewhere at the ‘Atlantis’ site another excavation is taking place, called Terezin, containing 32 graves.
Dr. Marina Kilunovskaya, of the St. Petersburg Institute of Material Culture, acknowledged how rich the site is in an interview with the Siberian Times.
“We are incredibly lucky to have found these burials of rich Hun nomads that were not disturbed by (ancient) grave robbers.” The burial sites date as far back as the Bronze Age, during the reign of Genghis Khan.
Archaeologists discover mummies with solid-gold tongues in Egypt
Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered several ancient mummies with solid-gold tongues in their mouths.
The bizarre finding was made when preserved corpses were unearthed at the Quweisna necropolis in the central Nile Delta, about 40 miles north of Cairo, dating between 300 BCE and 640 BCE.
Experts investigating tombs at the site found several mummies with gold chips shaped like human tongues in their mouths, said Dr. Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Archeology, in a press release.
Experts believe the real tongues of the dead were cut out during the embalming process and replaced with a piece of gold resembling the organ so that the deceased could speak to Osiris, the ancient Egyptian “Lord of the Underworld.”
Gold chips shaped like human tongues were recovered at an ancient Egyptian cemetery at Quweisna near Cairo.
Experts believe the real tongues of the deceased were replaced with gold ones during the mummification process so the departed could speak to the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, Osiris.
A human skeletal is seen at the burial site that had been in use during three different historic periods.
According to Waziri, several mummies were discovered with gold on the bone directly beneath the linen wraps used during the mummification process.
The mummies were said to be in a poor state of preservation.
Also found at the ancient cemetery were golden chips fashioned into scarab beetles and lotus flowers, as well as funerary amulets, pottery, glues and tar used in the embalming process, the remains of wooden coffins in the human form and several copper nails.
The necropolis at Quweisna first was discovered in 1989, leading to several rounds of excavations over the past three decades.
Archaeologists also found gold chips shaped into scarab beetles and lotus flowers.
Funerary ornaments were recovered inside the tombs dating back between 300 BCE and 640 BCE.
Quweisna was first discovered in 1989, and experts recently unearthed an extension of the cemetery complex.
The golden-tongued mummies were found in a recently uncovered extension of the cemetery, which contained cadavers that were laid to rest during three different historic periods.
Each of the burial levels displayed evidence of different rituals and various ways of laying the mummies to rest, said Dr. Ayman Ashmawi, head of the Egyptian archeology sector at the Supreme Council of Archeology.
This is not the first time that mummies adorned with precious metals have been discovered in Egypt.
In 2022, a 2,00-year-old skull with a tongue of gold was discovered at the Taposiris Magna site near Alexandria.
In 2022, archeologists dug up a 2,000-year-old skull with a tongue-shaped gold chip in its gaping mouth at a site near the city of Alexandria known as Taposiris Magna, which means “great tomb of Osiris.”
Chinese Boy Obsessed with Science Discovers 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Eggs While Playing
A boy in southern China has become a local celebrity after stumbling upon a nest of fossilized dinosaur eggs while playing outdoors this week.
The young discoverer, Zhang Yangzhe, came across the fascinating find while looking for something to crack walnuts open with on the embankment of Dongjiang River in Heyuan, Guangdong province on 2022.
The 10-year-old, who reportedly loves science, first saw a “strange stone” in the soil but later speculated that it could be a dinosaur egg upon closer inspection.
Having seen one before, Zhang noticed that the “stone” had circles on its surface, prompting him to call his mother to take a look at it as well.
Shortly, experts confirmed that the “stone,” indeed, was a dinosaur egg, later excavating 10 more in the surrounding area.
The eggs, which measure about 3.5 inches (8.89 centimeters) in length, date back to the late Cretaceous period, approximately 66 million years ago.
Speaking to Beijing Youth Daily, Zhang’s mother, Li Xiaofang, shared that her son actually loves science, especially topics on dinosaurs.
And, as a matter of fact, the third-grader has already read many books on the subject.
“I have learned this knowledge from books and from the cultural corridor at school,” Zhang said, according to the Heyuan Radio and Television Station.
“I have seen them [dinosaur eggs] in museums. Different dinosaur eggs have different shapes.”
Zhang’s discovery, however, may not come as a surprise for most locals, as Heyuan happens to be China’s “home of dinosaurs.”
Since 1996, over 17,000 dinosaur eggs have reportedly been dug out in the city, which erected its very own dinosaur museum to preserve them.
Burned 3,000-Year-Old Settlement Frozen in Time May Have Been Torched by Raiding Party
Archaeologists believe that an raiding party torched a village of the Bronze Age on stilts well preserved in the silt of the river, which fell into about 3000 years ago.
Many findings at the site just east of Peters-borough, England, including palisades made of new wood, indicate that a little while before they burned, people had lived there.
The site is at 120 km (74.5 miles) north of Must Farm in a quarry. An archeologist found out in 1999 when he saw wooden stakes or palisades sticking out of the mud and silt that protects them and many other artifacts. Scorching and charring wood also contributed to preserving some of the material.
A website on this site and excavations says: “At some point after the palisade, a fire was created in the area causing the platform to fall into the river underneath which immediately extinguished the flames.
As the material lay on the riverbed it was covered with layers of non-porous silt which helped to preserve everything from wooden utensils to clothing. It is this degree of preservation which makes the site fascinating and gives us hundreds of insights into life during the Bronze Age.”
The ancient people built the roundhouses over the water and encircled them with a possibly defensive palisade.
Along with its nine log boats, nine roundhouses and other main objects, the entire site is amazing, two of the most interesting finds were textiles and vitrified food.
Also, beads, likely from the Balkans and the Middle East, showed there was long-distance trade in Britain, where the Bronze Age began about 4,000 to 4,500 years ago.
The purpose of the textiles has not been discovered because there are no telltale clues such as cuffs to say whether it was used for clothing or other purposes.
However, one of the team members, Susanna Harris of Glasgow University, said they have found fine linen with thread counts of 30 per centimeter, as fine as any cloth known from Europe of the time. “I counted them several times, thinking ‘This can’t be right,’” Harris told
Archaeologists working on Must Farm revealed some of their findings to the media this week. Now they intend to retreat into the laboratory to more closely examine and analyze the many artifacts they have discovered at this site.
It’s the best Bronze Age settlement ever found in the United Kingdom,” said Mark Knight, project manager with the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, a private company that is in charge of the excavations. “We may have to wait a hundred years before we find an equivalent.”
The archaeologists say the roundhouses were about 8 meters (26.25 feet) in diameter. They were built above the water as a defense and to facilitate trade on the river, which led to the North Sea and other farms in the area.
Each house had woodworking tools, including chisels, axes and gouges. They also had sickles to reap grain, spears for hunting and perhaps fighting, and sets of ceramics that contained tiny cups, fine bowls and storage jars.
In the northeast sector of each house were butchered lambs. Dumped into the river were parts of deer and wild pigs. The archaeologists speculate the inhabitants may have had a taboo against butchering wild game indoors.
A bowl with a woodchip.
Several food vessels contain charred, wheat, barley and residues of food that had already been cooked. One bowl of stew had a spoon in its burned crust. Experts hope to get Bronze Age recipes from the prehistoric smorgasbord.
Tree rings from wood used to construct the roundhouses and palisade were from about 1290 to 1250 BC and were all green and undisturbed by insects. That, plus wood chips found there, tell archaeologists it was a new settlement when it burned.
Archaeologist Karl Harrison of Cranfield University has been analyzing the fire damage and scorch marks to determine if the fire started in a house or outside.
If it started inside, it may have been from a cook fire. If the blaze started outside, it might have been a case of arson. “It was rapid, smoke-filled, and incredibly destructive,” he told
The people never returned to the site, which ensured it was well-preserved for modern archaeologists to discover and analyze.
Ancient Warrior unearthed marching to the Afterlife with dagger drawn
Fighter from almost 3,000 year ago was ready to impale his enemies, expecting battles after death, with a ‘mirror’ on his eye.
Not all the treasures in his grave appeared ready for battle – the warrior also had some fetching white metal spiral earrings, made possibly from tin or silver.
The extraordinary find of this Bronze Age warrior – ready for combat on his journey to the next life between 2,700 and 2,900 years ago – is intriguing archeologists in Omsk city.
Unusual features are the dagger ready for use in one hand, a knife in the other, and a metallic eye patch, or badge, seen as either a mirror illuminating his route to another world, or those who gave him evil glances.
Nearby he had an axe and also some arrow heads.
Not all the treasures in his grave appeared ready for battle – the warrior also had some fetching white metal spiral earrings, made possibly from tin or silver.
The remains were found during the restoration of an historical building under Muzeinaya Street in Omsk.
The well-preserved skeleton with his arms crossed lay in the trench of a heating pipe made in the Soviet era, according to the regional government’s website.
Albert Polovodov, a specialist from the regional culture ministry, said: ‘In the right hand he held a dagger, the blade pointing forwards or upwards, as if he was going to use it as a stabbing weapon.
‘In other hand was a knife, blade down, as he was going to cut, dissect, cut ligaments and so on. Clearly, it is imitation of combat use of these weapon.’
It was as if he ‘was very carefully prepared for the road to another world, assuming that obstacles may exist in his way’,
It indicated that perhaps during his life ‘he had to fight – perhaps in battles for territories’.
Maxim Grachev, director of Omsk Museum of Archeology and Ethnography, said five burials had been found, but the four others were destroyed.
‘The ideal state of the grave was a pleasant surprise for us,’ he said.
‘We found a large number of well-preserved items: weapons, jewellery, and other items made of bronze.’
The warrior hailed from the transition period from the Bronze to the Iron age.
Other burial remains are likely to lie under the buildings on this site, but are not accessible, he said.
2,400 Years Old: Greek Helmet Found Buried Next to ‘elite warrior’
Greek Helmet: An archaeological team working at the Illyrian Cave Sanctuary in Nakovana, under the leadership of the Project Coordinator, Dr. of the Archaeological Department of the University of Zagradeb, Southern Dalmatia in Croatia. Hervoege Potrebica reveals Greek- 4th century BCE. According to eu.greekreporter.com with pieces of Illyrian war helmets still inside.
It is one of about forty helmets present in the world and is extremely rare. The design of the helmet was open-faced and probably originated in the Peloponnese in ancient Greece around the 8th century BCE.
They were worn by the Etruscan and Scythian tribes of ancient Greece for centuries until the 5th century BCE and for Illyrians by the 4th century BCE, a lesser known tribe.
Along with the helmet were weapons such as spears and knives made of iron, a bronze bracelet, bronze tweezers, fifteen bronze and silver amulets with the remains of a woman called a fibula, a dozen needles, about thirty luxury-quality Greeks. vases and hundreds of glasses. And amber beads.
The tomb was built on the edge of a mountain inhabited by the Zakototec, located on the Peljesac peninsula, in southern Delmatia, southern Croatia.
Unfortunately, the man’s skeleton was presumably in poor condition as the tomb was torn down which may have led one to wonder that other beautiful treasures had been lost.
The tomb cut from solid rock, which was a rectangle about ten feet down, about six and a half feet.
It was found in 2022 when a reconnaissance team from the Center for Prehistoric Research was dispatched to find areas of potential archaeological interest in and around the sanctuary, which originally housed the research consultant of the Institute for Anthropological Research and Research Institute. Stasso was discovered by Förenbahr. Assistant Professor at Zagreb University in Croatia.
Dr. Förnbahr has discovered ritual areas that date from the 4th to 1st century BCE containing fine quality pottery. Using modern research techniques, the team is able to discover both flat and mound tombs hidden in rocky landscapes. It was the restoration of one of these burial mounds that revealed the warrior’s grave goods.
More tomb mounds were found around the village of Zakotorak where archaeologists hope to find more evidence of burials and perhaps an ancient religious shrine when Kovid-19 is relaxed.
In 2022, archaeologists at the University of Warsaw’s Southeastern Europe Research Center in Poland discovered the first known Illyrian castle complex in the small neighboring country of Montenegro while excavating the city of Ronzon.
A Greek-Ilerian helmet was discovered where a fragment of a vase of Greek origin was found in the tomb.
According to Scienceinpoland.pap.pl, the palaces were built in the 3rd century BC and may have been the residence of Queen Tuta the Inaccessible and later King Ballios.
The architecture was completely unique, one made up of a palace, built in 260BC, and the other after 250BC by two different kings who used palaces. Very little is known about Bailayos but enough coins stamped on his image show that he was a powerful ruler from 167BC to 135BC.
The discovery of his palace also helps researchers to put their line of succession in the correct order. The previous resident, Rani Tuta, ruled for her newborn child as queen from 231BC to 227BC.
The palace was then attacked and destroyed, another was built much larger, with a kitchen and banquet hall, a mosaic floor that was built using pebbles and molded door frames around wooden doors.
A formidable ruler, he also took the giants of Rome but was forced to surrender in 227BC. Montenegro still honors him with images on the current currency and sculptures in the city.
The oldest palace was a large room with a chimney surrounded by several marble columns, where archaeologists found thirty coins, possibly a religious offering. Storage rooms for amphora, large vessels used to transport wine and food items, were also found.
Ancient Necropolis Discovered in 17th-Century Croatian Palace’s Garden
An individual buried in an amphora on the Croatian island of Hvar
Archaeologists on the Croatian island of Hvar have unearthed an ancient necropolis, or vast burial ground, dated to between the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.
As local news outlet Croatia Week reports, the team found the burial ground in the front garden of the Radošević Palace, a 17th-century Baroque building on the western end of the island.
Archaeological consulting company Kantharos spearheaded the dig and has spent the past two months examining the site ahead of construction of a new library and reading room.
According to a statement, the researchers discovered 20 graves containing the skeletal remains of 32 people in an area spanning some 700 square feet.
They also found a fragment of a stone wall dated to the second century A.D. and a city gate dated to the late fifth century.
Other highlights included amphorae (jars used mainly for transporting wine and olive oil), ceramic jugs and lamps, glass bottles and containers, and coins.
These discoveries, says Kantharos in the statement, per Google Translate, have prompted researchers to call the palace “the most important and richest site” on Hvar.
Researchers have dubbed the Baroque Radošević Palace “the most important and richest site” on Hvar.
Broken amphoras found on the island of Hvar
As per Encyclopedia Britannica, Hvar has been inhabited continuously since the early Neolithic period. Greek settlers founded colonies on the island in 385 B.C., but by 219 B.C., the Romans had seized control of the area. Slavic groups fleeing the European mainland arrived on Hvar in the seventh century A.D.
Built between 1670 and 1688, the palace itself served as the local seat of the wealthy Radošević family, wrote scholar Ambroz Tudor, who was part of the Kantharos team, in a 2022 study.
Its accentuated balconies and “lavishly decorated façade openings” make the estate a stunning example of Baroque architecture, Tudor added.
nside the newly excavated necropolis, experts found burials ranging from simple structures to elaborate tombs outfitted with roof tiles, writes Jesse Holth for ARTnews. Per the statement, the remains were exceptionally well preserved, with some of the skeletons interred in large jars alongside grave goods.
This unusual funerary ritual appears regularly in the archaeological record, but scholars remain unsure of the practice’s purpose. Reporting on a similar find made on the Mediterranean island of Corsica earlier this year, Amanda Morrow of Radio France Internationale (RFI) noted that such burials were generally reserved for infants or children. (The ages of the individuals buried in amphorae on Hvar remain unclear.)
A vessel found at the excavation site
Vessel uncovered during excavations
Some of the amphorae held grave goods.
“You might go to the practical thing and say that the bodies were so fragile, [maybe] they felt the need to protect it from the environment, even though it is dead,” Yoav Arbel, an archaeologist who was part of a team that discovered a baby buried in a jar in the Israeli city of Jaffa, told Laura Geggel last December.
“But there’s always the interpretation that the jar is almost like a womb, so basically the idea is to return [the] baby back into Mother Earth, or into the symbolic protection of his mother.”
As Croatian news outlet Dalmacija Danas notes, one of the last finds made during the dig was the second-century wall, which was hidden at the deepest layers of the site.
Though Kantharos plans to conduct additional research to learn more about local funerary customs, the statement notes that the preliminary findings offer new insights on ceramic production and trade networks.
Researchers have previously made similar finds in the region. In 2022, for instance, archaeologists unearthed a Roman necropolis containing at least 18 graves in the Croatian harbor town of Trogir.
And last year, a separate team discovered two well-preserved, 2,000-year-old shipwrecks containing amphorae and pottery off the coast of Hvar.
