Beguiling Blasphemy (invited lecture)

I will be presenting a lecture entitled "Beguiling Blasphemy: The Hell-Fire Clubs of the 18th Century", for the University of Bristol Archaeology and Anthropology Society.

Thursday 3rd Feb 2011, 5.30pm.

All welcome, wine reception to follow.

"Academic Journal" will publish your articles, for a hefty fee

Over at Antiqua they have come up with a cunning plan:

1. Send unsolicited emails to every academic address they can find.
2. Tell the academic that they can get their article (any article it would seem) published, quickly. [All academics want to have lots of papers published, it is just a slow and agonising process.]
3. Antiqua offer you the chance to write the article, send it to them along with €350 and keep your fingers crossed that they will publish it. Online. Only online....

I am not impressed.

Have a read for yourself here: http://www.pagepress.org/journals/index.php/antiqua/pages/view/why

Askeaton survey

I spent the day conducting an archaeological survey in Askeaton, Co. Limerick!

The circular enclosure measures 30m in diameter, and contains a walled internal section (pictured, badly!)

All the dry stone walls have collapsed over time. At their highest point the walls reach some 2m.

According to the locals, the walls were once much higher. Some stone has been removed by the locals and cows have flattened sections of the site.

Stones are scattered haphazardly throughout. The level of overgrowth is extensive.

Proper maps and pictures coming soon. If anyone has any idea of what the site is, please let me know - have you seen anything similar?

Dendrochronology find - German tomb

A 2,600 year old tomb in southern Germany contains the remains of oak wood in a suprising state of preservation. This offers the opportunity to accurately date the remains. Of course, international news has picked up the story as there is lots of shiny gold too ... !

Read more here.

TAGtastic

The 32nd TAG (Theoretical Archaeology Group) Conference went off without a hitch this weekend - thanks to all the organisers for all their hard work!

The (Mona Lisa) eyes say it all

Leonardo Da Vinci's 500-year-old Renaissance masterpiece has long been steeped in mystery, and even today the true identity of the woman with the alluring smile still far from certain.

Now members of Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage have revealed that by magnifying high resolution images of the Mona Lisa's eyes letters and numbers can be seen.

"To the naked the symbols are not visible but with a magnifying glass they can clearly be seen," said Silvano Vinceti, president of the Committee.

Read more here

Women and Religion - Conference Poster now online

View my conference poster here or check it out from this link http://www.archaeologyash.com/about-me (bottom of the page)

Robot films interior of Feathered Serpent Temple, Teotihuacan, Mexico

The first images of the interior of the tunnel found under the Feathered Serpent Temple, in Teotihuacan, captured by a small robot introduced by archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), were presented to the media due to the relevance of the event in the history of Mexican archaeological research.

This is the first time a robot is integrated to archaeological exploration in Mexico; a similar devise was used in Egypt 10 years ago to explore a tomb.

Tlaloque 1, named after the mythological beings that helped Tlaloc, covered the first stretch of a tunnel that has not been walked for 1,800 years. Images reveal that the passageway built more than 2,000 years ago to represent the underworld, is stable enough to be explored by archaeologists soon.

During the presentation of the images to communication media representatives, the INAH national coordinator of Archaeology, Salvador Guilliem, was present. It was mentioned that this robotic device adds up to the technologies used by archaeologists in this project. Several weeks ago, geo radar was used to determine with precision that the tunnel conducts to 3 chambers, where the remains of important characters might have been buried.

Archaeologist Sergio Gomez Chavez, director of “Tlalocan Project: Underground Road”, informed that this is the first time that this kind of device is used in Mexico; “Apparently it had been used in Egypt, and us, as INAH researchers, are the first ones to develop it and use it in our country”.

Click here for a slideshow of images

Poster Presentation - Women and Religion Conference

I will be presenting a poster at the forthcoming Women and Religion conference, "Anti-Religion: Women of the Hell-Fire Clubs".

The First BIRTHA Postgraduate Women and Religion Conference will be held at Bristol University on 20 November 2010.   The keynote speaker will be Dr Carolyn Muessig, Reader in Medieval Religion in the Theology and Religious Studies department of the University of Bristol, and the concluding address with be given by Dr Martin Seeger, Lecturer in Thai Language and Culture, and Director of Thai Studies at Leeds University.  This conference brings together doctoral researchers and early career academics from a variety of disciplines and fields to explore the role and place of women in religion. Presenters will be coming from Universities in the UK and from Europe (France and Italy) and panels will include papers on the role and status of women in Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam both in the present and historically, and from a wide range of perspectives (textual, sociological, historical).  Registration is free but required as the number of places is limited. More information and registration form can be found at http://www.bris.ac.uk/arts/gradschool/community/conferences/

Archaeology isn't just about holes in the ground

A new exhibition is challenging how we view what is archaeology and what is not.

The exhibition showcases online designs from the earliest times of the Internet.

Web design is now an industry, but early in the Internet's evolution there was an explosion of amazing design innovation. This expression of creativity is now being collected and save by some fans of web layouts.

Read more here

Ancient party garden!

A newly discovered 7th century B.C. palace garden near Jerusalem could reveal details about how royals liked to let loose in ancient times.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and Germany's Heidelberg University uncovered the royal garden at the site of Ramat Rachel, a kibbutz (communal farm) in Israel, and are leading the first full-scale excavation of this type of archaeological site in Israel.

"We have uncovered a very rare find," archaeologist Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University said.

The garden was a massive and lush green space royals would use to relax. Such pleasure spots were once the ultimate symbol of power, according to the researchers.

Read more here

35,000-year-old axe head places Aboriginal ancestors at the cutting edge of technology

THE oldest ground-edge tool in the world has been discovered in Arnhem Land, prompting scientists to reconsider exactly when the technique of grinding to make tools sharp entered the Stone Age.

Unearthed from a sandstone cave in a remote part of south-west Arnhem Land in May, the basalt axe piece measuring 4 centimetres in length has been radio-carbon dated at 35,000 years old.

The discovery is significant as it predates by at least 5000 years the oldest known examples of other ground-edge implements from Japan and Australia, which have been dated at 22,000 to 30,000 years old. By comparison, the earliest ground-edge axes from Europe, West Asia and Africa are about 8,500 years old.

Full story here

Skulls of 4 extinct animals discovered underwater in the Yucatan

Four complete skulls and jaws of a species extinct in America, Arctotherium, that lived during the Pleistocene and disappeared 11,300 years ago, were found by sub aquatic archaeologists in the bed of a cenote in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

These are the only specimens of their type found until now in this region of the country, and add up to the list of Prehistorical fauna located inside this kind of water bodies, which before glaciations were dry caves.

Sub aquatic archaeologist Guillermo de Anda Alanis, from the Yucatan Autonomous University (UADY), who conducts this research as part of the project authorized by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) “El Culto al Cenote en el Centro de Yucatan” (Cult to Cenote in Central Yucatan) since 2007, announced the details of the discovery at the International Congress American Cultures and their Environment: Perspectives from Zoo Archaeology, Paleo Botanic and Ethno Biology, organized by UADY and taking place from November 1st to 5th 2010 in Merida, Yucatan.

Guillermo de Anda Alanis declared that the remains were located in a submerged cavern between the towns of Sotuta and Homun, in Yucatan, at 40 meters depth. Bones were dispersed in a 120 meter diameter surface, and it has been estimated that they could correspond to a family of bears, since the 2 adult skulls belonged to a male and a female, while the other 2 skulls did not reach their full development. They were all from the same species.

The archaeologist indicated that besides the mammals’ remains, 5 ancient human bone remains, still to be dated, were located 30 meters away from the bears, but it is still unknown if they are related.

Source

The wonders of the internet - Dead Sea Scrolls to go online

The Dead Sea Scrolls, among the world's most important, mysterious and tightly restricted archaeological treasures, are about to get Googled.

The technology giant and Israel announced Tuesday that they are teaming up to give researchers and the public the first comprehensive and searchable database of the scrolls – a 2,000-year-old collection of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek documents that shed light on Judaism during biblical times and the origins of Christianity. For years, experts have complained that access to the scrolls has been too limited.

Once the images are up, anyone will be able to peruse exact copies of the original scrolls as well as an English translation of the text on their computer – for free. Officials said the collection, expected to be available within months, will feature sections that have been made more legible thanks to high-tech infrared technology.

Read more: http://acn.liveauctioneers.com/index.php/component/content/article/3353?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ACNlatestnews+%28Auction+Central+News+-+Latest+News%29#ixzz13MwgrpW3

Trincomalee - Tamil Tablet

Millennium old Tamil inscription found in Trincomalee

A stone slab having a Tamil inscription, clearly in the alphabet of the Chola times, was found in Trincomalee while digging for cricket stadium construction work recently. The land where it was found is a part of the esplanade, on the right side of the Koa’neasvaram Road leading to the Siva temple inside Fort Frederick and is adjacent to the bay where the temple’s Theerththam (water cutting) ritual is held. Sometimes back, a Buddhist Vihara and another structure called Sanghamitta Buddhist Rest were constructed at this place. The inscribed slab was taken into possession by the Trincomalee police and was sent to the Department of Archaeology in Colombo.

Read more here.

Bridal colours of the wind?

Her life has been celebrated in song, story and a Disney cartoon, but no one knew where Pocahontas tied the knot with a tobacco farmer—until now.

Archaeologist Bill Kelso and his team were digging this summer in a previously unexplored section of the fort at Jamestown, Va., the country's oldest permanent English colony, when they uncovered a series of deep holes. They believe the holes once anchored heavy, timber columns supporting the fort's first church, known to have been built in 1608 and the place where Pocahontas got married in 1614

Read more of Kelly Crow's article here.

Recycling Romans!

The 21st century's three Rs -- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle -- were all the rage in Britain during the last century of Roman rule, a compositional analysis of ancient Roman glass tableware has revealed.

According to the study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, large quantities of glass were recycled in Britain during the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.

The reason wasn’t exactly a desire to go green, but a shortage of raw glass in the northern regions of the Roman Empire during the last centuries of Roman rule.

“It appears much of the glass reaching Britain in the late Roman period was manufactured from recycled material,” Caroline Jackson, at the archaeology department of the University of Sheffield, U.K., told Discovery News.

Believed to have originated in Mesopotamia around 2500 B.C., the art of glass-making spread to Egypt, with the most significant technological revolution -- glass blowing employing a tube -- occurring in the 1st century B.C. in the area of Syria and Palestine.

The Romans exploited the technique, and glass-making spread throughout the empire, with glass becoming a common household material.

Made out of sand, glass takes on the color of the chemical elements present in raw material. For example, sand containing iron produces blue-green glass, while iron and sulfur elements make a brownish glass.

Skilled Roman craftsmen were able to control glass color through a careful selection of the raw materials, and produced colorless glass by adding a decolorizer, an element which oxidizes the chemicals in the sand to remove the color.

“In the Roman period, this element would have been antimony or manganese,” said Jackson.

Resembling crystal, colorless glass was much valued. According to the Roman author, Pliny, the emperor Nero (37-68 A.D.) gave 6,000 sestertia (roughly $250,000) for two clear glass cups of ordinary size, with handles.

A highly developed and successful industry, Roman glass-making still holds some mystery. It is unknown where colorless glass was produced, and scholars still debate how the glass industry was organized.

Read more of Rossella Lorenzi's article here (Discover.com)

China's inland waterways under archaeological investigation

East China's Jiangxi Province will launch an underwater archaeological investigation in Poyang Lake next month, China's first such project in inland waters.

"This time, we will go into China's largest fresh-water lake to study its repository of underwater sites and artifacts," said Fan Changsheng, director of Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Archeology.

Archaeologists will start by identifying submerged indigenous sites, waterlogged ancient battlefields, and shipwrecks at "Laoyemiao" , a mysterious and dangerous area in Poyang Lake, according to Fan.

World-class equipment, including advanced sonar sound machines and sand pumps, will be used for the mission, said Fan.

The development of China's underwater archaeology began in the late 1980s when China start salvaging its ancient shipwrecks. While a new field of exploration, it has seen rapid development in recent years.

"China has previously conducted several maritime archaeological projects in its coastal regions, but this will be the first time it will take place in the country's fresh waters," said Fan.

Along with Laoyemiao, the Anhui sections of the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers have been selected as the second coveted spot for such underwater archaeological studies.

Laoyemiao, a narrow water channel linking Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River, was chosen for its historical and archeological significance.According to Fan, ancient vessels carrying famous Jingdezhen-made porcelain ware had to pass this gateway before heading out to destinations outside China.

Read more here

Pyramids, with homes on top?

John Roach at National Geographic News has a lot to say about an odd pyramid that had rooftop homes and possible ritual sacrifices ... At rare Peru site, elites linked to copper industry lived on high, experts say.

Yes, it's yielded human remains—including five females who may have been ritually sacrificed. But it's the signs of life that make a half-excavated Peruvian pyramid of the Moche culture stand out, archaeologists say.

"Often these pyramidal mounds were built as mortuaries more than anything else," said excavation co-leader Edward Swenson. (See pictures from the tomb of the Moche "king of bling.")

"In most instances [a pyramid] is not where people live, it is not where they were cooking their food," the University of Toronto archaeologist added.

But the newly exposed 1,400-year-old flat-topped pyramid supported residences for up to a couple dozen elites, who oversaw and perhaps took part in copper production at the site, evidence suggests.

The pre-Inca pyramid dwellers likely presided over important rituals, feasted on roasted llama and guinea pig, and drank corn beer, according to archaeologists working at the site.

Among the signs of occupation are at least 19 adobe stands where large vessels of water and corn beer were stored, as well as scattered llama, dog, guinea pig, and fish bones and traces of coca leaves and red peppers.

"There's a far more robust domestic occupation than what we would have expected," said expedition co-leader John Warner, an archaeologist with the University of Kentucky.

Read more of his great article here.

35 new archaeology jobs created (kind of)

In the news today:

"Headland Archaeology to create 35 jobs

Headland Archaeology today officially launched an office in Dublin, adding to its Cork, Galway, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London locations.

The new office will create five new jobs immediately, with a further 30 roles expected over the next 12 months.

The company, which supplies commercial archaeology services to the UK, Ireland and Europe, said the establishment of a permanent office in Dublin was “the next logical step”."

So, really five jobs have been created - yes, great, but is this really news worthy?

Is that the level of desperation we are at now that 5 new jobs and a probable 30 more is the stuff of headlines??? Especially with no actual guarantee of the 30 other jobs.

Oh dear, archaeology has really been hit hard!