From Ancient Mummification Workshops to a New Moai statue – Fascinating discoveries in Archaeology 2023

 From Ancient Mummification Workshops to a New Moai statue – Fascinating discoveries in Archaeology 2023

2023 was a fruitful year for Archaeology. With examples of great discoveries being made with technology such as AI before our very eyes, scientists have been able to shed new light on previously excavated artifacts.

Again, this year has been one for constant new discoveries in the world of archaeology. One notable example being the revelation of burial techniques in an Egyptian mummy workshop. A 2000-year-old sunken temple, currently laying at the bottom of the sea in Italy, was found to have been built by merchants from the Arabian desert. Also, a city belonging to the great Mayan civilisation was discovered deep in the jungle, by the use of laser technology.

The Swords of the Dead Sea

In June, 4 swords in a surprisingly preserved state were discovered in a cave in the Judean Desert.
These swords were hidden in this cave around the 1^st to 3^rd century AD. At the time, the area was under control of the Roman Empire and this cave was a hiding place for the Jewish insurgent army. In normal conditions, wood and leather would have rotted but due to the dry environment the swords, along with their handles and sheathes, have been perfectly preserved.

The cave in which the swords were found is located along the Dead Sea, in south-east Jerusalem. The first thing discovered in this cave was the iron head of a Pilum, a throwing spear from the Roman Era and fragments of handmade wooden items. After this, the cave was searched with a metal detector and the 4 swords were discovered pushed into the space behind a stalactite.

These weapons are believed to have been hidden by the Jewish insurgent army around the period of 132-135 AD, the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. These were likely collected from the battlefield or stolen from the Roman Army. This sword has gained the attention of archaeologists as the wood and the leather used has been so well preserved, it can provide a clue into when and where this sword was made.

The Discovery of the Head of a New Moai Statue

In February, the head of a new Moai statue was excavated by volunteers on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), an island located in the Pacific Ocean, about 3000 miles from the coast of Chile.

The statue that was discovered was a little smaller at just over 1.5 meters in height. 900 or so statues on this island reach over 10 meters in height (These statues are incomplete, are are estimated to be around 21 meters tall if they were completed.) This statue was discovered in a dried up crater lake and has archaeologists thinking that more are yet to be discovered.

A majority of the Moai statues were made during the years 1250-1500 and are considered by the people living there to be the life-like faces of their deified ancestors. It is not yet known whose ancestor this newly discovered statue depicts, but Archaeologists have begun looking for the tools used to carve these statues from soft-volcanic rock. If the Rongorongo glyphs carved into wooden planks can be deciphered, it is likely that it will provide further insight into this mystery.

The Lost Mayan City discovered with LiDAR Technology

In June, a buried Mayan city within the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico was discovered using the groundbreaking LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology. With LiDAR, a plane scans the ground below using lasers that fire thousands of times every second and is able to deeply survey even the land covered by shrubs and trees. It could even ascertain the flows and curves of the Mississippi River of the past.

The archaeologists who made the journey out to visit the city, gave it the name Ocomtún, meaning ‘stone pillar’ in Mayan.

It is thought that Ocomtún thrived as a central city around the year 250, but was then abandoned during 900-1000 AD when long droughts and internal strife caused the collapse of the Mayan Civilisation. The center of Ocomtún has an area of over 50 hectares with a town square, a ballpark, housing for the leader, hills, an altar and pyramid-shaped temples. The ruins of the biggest pyramid is over 24 meters in height.

The Merchant Temple under the water of Italy

In August, Italian archaeologists found ruins of a 2000-year-old temple in the sea close to Napoli. It is thought that this temple was constructed by ancient Nabateans an ancient Arab people who the lived in the lands that are now Jordan and Saudi Arabia and constructed the city of Petra.

Nabatean people were desert traders who provided the people of Rome luxury items from the east. Most of the traded goods arrived in the port of Puteoli (Modern day Pozzuoli). As this region was close to Mount Vesuvius, the temples constructed on the coast were all submerged in the eruption.

There was also an altar used to worship the Nabetean gods in the submerged ruins. It is thought that this temple played a role as both a place of worship and also as a representation of Nabatean culture.

The two Ancient Egyptian Mummification Workshops

In May, Egyptian Archeologists announced that they found 2 newly discovered mummification workshops in Saqqara. Saqqara was a Necropolis (an ancient burial city) close to the ancient city of Memphis, a few miles south of Cairo and the workshop is in the ruins of 30^th Dynasty (380-343 BC) and Ptolemaic Dynasty (305-30BC) of late Ancient Egypt.

In Ancient Egypt, bodies were mummified in order to preserve their body for the after-life and has a long history tracing back hundreds of years to around 2600 BC. In one of the mummification workshops was a stone table on which the mummification would be practiced. In the other, was a smaller stone table on which it is surmised that animals would be mummified.

Tools used in mummification, earth ware vases in which organs would be stored and containers for preserved organs for sacrifice and Natron, a type of soda ash, were all found. This Natron, collected from the bottom of dried up lakes in the desert was an indispensable tool for mummification.

Lost Gems found in the Ruins of an Ancient Roman Bath House

Several gemstones with carvings of Roman gods and animals were found in the drainage gutter of the  3^rd/4^th Century ruins of an Ancient Roman public bath house in Carlisle, northern England in June. It is likely that wealthy people came to these bathhouses wearing jewellery from which the gemstones fell and ended up in the drain after the adhesive loosened from the heat and humidity.

Semi-precious stones such as agate, jasper, amethyst and carnelian were found amongst these. Some had carvings of Roman gods such as Apollo, Venus and Mars whilst others featured carvings of rabbits or birds. Such engraved gemstones are known as Intaglio and were used as a form of signature by pressing a ring inlayed with these gemstones into clay or wax as a seal.

This ancient drainage gutter was found under the Carlisle Cricket Club building. During the Roman occupation of Britannia, Carlisle was called Luguvalium and was a central city in the region.

The Sunken Transport Ship carrying Prisoners of War in the South China Sea

In April, an Australian survey team announced that they discovered the sunken ship Montevideo. This was a Japanese transport ship and in 1942 during the Second World War, was sunk during the transportation of over 1000 captives of the allied forces. At the time, Montevideo was transporting Australian army soldiers, Norwegian Navy troops and over 200 civilians captured during Japan’s invasion of New Guinea.

At the time, the ship was on route to the Japanese occupied islands in southern China when was discovered by the US submarine Sturgeon. Sturgeon was not aware that the ship was carrying Allied Force prisoners and shot the Montevideo down with a torpedo after following the Montevideo for several hours.

All of the prisoners of war died and this sinking became Australia’s biggest maritime incident in history. According to the reports of few of the Japanese crewmates who helped, the POWs who clung to driftwood sand Auld Lang Syne to mourn their friends who sank with the ship.

 

Source: 古代のミイラ工房から新たなモアイ像まで、思わずワクワクする考古学の発見2023（ナショナル ジオグラフィック日本版） - Yahoo!ニュース