Archaeology
Coptic-era tombs uncovered in Upper Egypt’s Minya
A joint Spanish-Egyptian archaeological mission has uncovered Coptic-era tombs in the upper Egyptian governorate of Minya.
Excavations were conducted by the University of Barcelona and the Supreme Council of Archaeology, which discovered 22 tombs from the Persian, Roman and Coptic periods at the Al-Bahnasa archaeological site.
Al-Bahnasa, also known as Oxyrhynchus, was first excavated in 1897 by the papyrologist, Arthur Surridge Hunt, and the Egyptologist, Bernard Pyne Grenfell. Their excavations revealed thousands of papyri written in Greek from the Roman period, a substantial number of which are now housed in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.
Over the past century, the site has been ransacked by looters and treasure-hunters, for which many artefacts now in private collections and public museums have been identified as originating from Al-Bahnasa.
During the recent Spanish-Egyptian archaeological mission, 6 funerary complexes have been uncovered that date from the Roman and Persian period, while 16 individual tombs belong to the Coptic-Byzantine period.
The Coptic period defines Late Roman Egypt (3rd−4th centuries AD) and Byzantine Egypt (4th−7th centuries AD). This era shows a religious shift in Egyptian culture to Coptic Christianity from ancient Egyptian religion, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century AD.
Many of the Roman tombs are built using limestone and were found with the lids missing, suggesting that they were likely robbed sometime during antiquity. As for the Coptic-era tombs, they are a rectangular in shape and contain burials which are covered with decorated shrouds.
Mostafa Waziry, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said: “It has been a very interesting season due to the numerous and unprecedented archaeological findings and the new scientific hypotheses raised”.
Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
Header Image Credit : Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
An archaeological survey has identified three clusters of ancient qanats in the Diyala Province of Iraq.
A qanat, also known as a kārīz, is a system for transporting water from an aquifer or water well over long distances in hot dry climates without losing water to evaporation.
Qanats use a sequence of vertical shafts resembling wells, linked by a gently inclined tunnel that serves as a conduit for channelling water. Qanats efficiently transport substantial volumes of underground water to the surface without requiring pumps.
The water naturally flows downhill by gravity, with the endpoint positioned at a lower level than the origin. When the qanat is still below ground, the water is drawn to the surface via water wells or animal driven Persian wells.
Image Credit : State Board of Antiquities & Heritage
Some Qanats are divided into an underground network of smaller canals known as kariz, functioning similarly to qanats by staying beneath the surface to prevent contamination and evaporation. In certain instances, water from a qanat is stored in a reservoir, usually with nighttime flow reserved for daytime usage.
The technology for qanat’s first emerged in ancient Iran around 3,000-years-ago and slowly spread westward and eastward.
A recent survey within the Diyala Province has discovered three clusters of qanats stretching between the areas of Jalulaa and Kortaba. Initial studies dates the clusters to around AD 1000, a period known as the “Iranian Intermezzo”, when parts of the region were governed by a number of minor Iranian emirates.
The first cluster consists of 25 wells on a linear alignment connected to an adjacent 10 metre deep water channel. The second cluster also has 25 wells and is connected to a 13 km long hand dug channel, while the third cluster consists of 9 wells connected to water canals dug on both sides.
Header Image Credit : State Board of Antiquities & Heritage
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists have discovered a 16,800-year-old Palaeolithic dwelling in the La Garma cave complex, located in the municipality of Ribamontán al Monte in Spain’s Cantabria province.
The La Garma cave complex is a parietal art-bearing paleoanthropological cave system on the southern side of the La Garma Hill.
The cave complex is noted for one of the best preserved floors from the Palaeolithic period, containing more than 4,000 fossils and more than 500 graphical units.
A project led by Pablo Arias and Roberto Ontañón from the University of Cantabria has recently announced the discovery of a Palaeolithic dwelling within the cave system, described as “one of the best preserved Palaeolithic dwellings in the world.”
The dwelling is an oval space and is delimited by an alignment of stone blocks and stalagmites that supported a fixed structure of sticks and skins leaning against the cave wall. The total area of the space is around 5 square metres that centred on a camp fire.
Archaeologists also found vestiges of various daily activities associated with Magdalenian hunters and gatherers at the dwelling, including evidence of stone manufacturing, bone and antler instruments, and the working of fur.
In total, over 4,614 objects have been documented, such as dear, horse and bison bones, 600 pieces of flint, needles and a protoharpoon, shells of marine mollusks, as well as numerous pendants worn by the cave dwelling inhabitants.
Additionally, the researchers also found a number of decorated bones, including a remarkable pierced aurochs phalanx engraved with a depiction of both the animal itself and a human face—a distinctive artefact unique to the European Palaeolithic era.
Due to the national importance of the discovery, the team used innovative non-intrusive techniques in their study of the dwelling. This includes continuous tomography of the soils, 3D cartography, the molecular and genetic analysis of soils and Palaeolithic objects, mass spectrometry, and hyperspectral imaging.
Header Image Credit : University of Cantabria
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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