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Magnetic fields could provide the key to studying submerged civilisations

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A study by the University of Bradford could provide the key to studying submerged civilisations by looking for anomalies in magnetic fields.

According to Ben Urmston from the University of Bradford, magnetic fields could indicate the presence of archaeological features without the need for exploratory underwater excavations.

Magnetometry has previously been used by terrestrial archaeologists but has not been used extensively to examine submerged landscapes.

The pioneering technique could be applied in Doggerland, a submerged land mass beneath what is now the North Sea, that once connected Britain to continental Europe.

The landscape of Doggerland was a diverse mix of gentle hills, marshes, wooded valleys and swamps during the later Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods.

Small groups of hunter-gatherers took advantage of Doggerland’s rich migrating wildlife, with evidence of ancient animal bones and tools being brought to the surface by fishing trawlers operating in the North Sea.

Doggerland – Image Credit : Francis Lima – CC BY-SA 4.0

Over time, the area was flooded by rising sea levels after the last glacial period around 6,500 to 6,200 BC. Melting water that had been locked away caused the land to tilt in an isostatic adjustment as the huge weight of ice lessened.

Doggerland eventually became submerged leaving only Dogger Bank, a possible moraine (accumulation of glacial debris) which also succumbed to the sea around 5000 BC.

According to Urmston: “Small changes in the magnetic field can indicate changes in the landscape, such as peat-forming areas and sediments, or where erosion has occurred, for example in river channels. As the area we are studying used to be above sea level, there’s a small chance this analysis could even reveal evidence for hunter-gatherer activity.”

“We might also discover the presence of middens, which are rubbish dumps that consist of animal bone, mollusc shells and other biological material that can tell us a lot about how people lived,” added Urmston.

Such features could be analysed closer by taking samples of the seabed which are then sent for carbon dating and a microscopic analysis.

Professor Vince Gaffney, academic lead for the project, said: “Exploring the submerged landscapes beneath the North Sea represents one of the last great challenges to archaeology. Achieving this is becoming even more urgent with the rapid development of the North Sea for renewable energy.”

University of Bradford

Header Image Credit : Cloudinary – CC BY-SA 4.0

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2,000 ram heads uncovered at Temple of Rameses II in Abydos

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An archaeological mission led by the University of York has uncovered 2,000 ram heads at the Temple of Rameses II in Abydos, Egypt.

Abydos is one of the oldest cities of Ancient Egypt following Upper Egypt becoming unified under Abydos rulers during the Naqada III period (3200–3000 BC).

The city was the site of many ancient temples, including Umm el-Qa’ab, a royal necropolis where early pharaohs were entombed, and the temple of Seti I, which contains an inscription known as the Abydos King List (a chronology of dynastic pharaohs of Ancient Egypt from Menes until Seti I’s father, Ramesses I).

During the 19th dynasty, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, constructed a temple complex in dedication primarily to Osiris and Seti I. Ramesses II is often regarded as the most celebrated pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of Ancient Egypt.

The temple is decorated with several achievements from his rule, including scenes of the Battle of Kadesh where the forces of the New Kingdom of Egypt under Ramesses II, and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II, fought near the modern Lebanon–Syria border around 1274 BC.

Excavations at the temple complex by archaeologists from the University of York have uncovered 2,000 ram heads dating from the Ptolemaic period. The team also found the remains of ewes, wild goats, dogs, cows, gazelles and mongooses within a room in the temple complex, which are thought to be votive offerings in reverence to Ramses II 1,000 years after his death.

Image Credit : Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

A large palatial structure was also discovered from the Old Kingdom’s 6th Dynasty, containing several statues, papyri, ancient tree remains, leather garments and shoes, in addition to parts of the northern wall that surrounded the Temple of Rameses II.

According to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the palace will greatly contribute to a new interpretation of how the site looked during the Old Kingdom and the activities that took place there.

Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Header Image Credit : Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

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The “Stonehenge calendar” shown to be a modern construct

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Stonehenge is an astonishingly complex monument, which attracts attention mostly for its spectacular megalithic circle and “horseshoe”, built around 2600 BC.

Over the years, several theories have been put forward about Stonehenge’s meaning and function. Today, however, archaeologists have a rather clear picture of this monument as a “place for the ancestors”, located within a complex ancient landscape which included several other elements.

Archaeoastronomy has a key role in this interpretation since Stonehenge exhibits an astronomical alignment to the sun which, due to the flatness of the horizon, refers both to the summer solstice sunrise and to the winter solstice sunset. This accounts for a symbolic interest of the builders in the solar cycle, most probably related to the connections between the afterlife and winter solstice in Neolithic societies

This is, of course, very far from saying that the monument was used as a giant calendrical device, as instead has been proposed in a new theory published in the renewed Archaeology Journal Antiquity.  According to this theory, the monument represents a calendar based on 365 days per year divided into 12 months of 30 days plus five epagomenal days, with the addition of a leap year every four. This calendar is identical to the Alexandrian one, introduced more than two millennia later, at the end of the first century BC as a combination of the Julian calendar and the Egyptian civil calendar.

To justify this “calendar in stone”, the number of the days is obtained by multiplying the 30 sarsen lintels (probably) present in the original project by 12 and adding to 360 the number of the standing trilithons of the Horseshoe, which is five.

The addition of a leap year every four is related to the number of the “station stones”, which is, indeed, four. This machinery was allegedly kept in operation using the solstice alignment of the axis and was supposedly taken from Egypt, much refining, however, the Egyptian calendar, which was of 365 days (the leap year correction was not present until Roman times).

This is the admittedly fascinating theory that has been subjected to a severe stress test by two renewed experts of  Archaeoastronomy, Juan Antonio Belmonte (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain) and Giulio Magli (Politecnico of Milan). In their paper, which is going to be published on Antiquity as well, the authors show that the theory is based on a series of forced interpretations of the astronomical connections of the monument, as well as on debatable numerology and unsupported analogies.

First of all, astronomy. Although the solstice alignment is quite accurate, Magli and Belmonte show that the slow movement of the sun at the horizon in the days close to solstices makes it impossible to control the correct working of the alleged calendar, as the device (remember: composed by huge stones) should be able to distinguish positions as accurate as a few arc minutes, that is, less than 1/10 of one degree.  So, while the existence of the axis does show interest in the solar cycle in a broad sense, it provides no proof whatsoever for inferring the number of days of the year conceived by the builders.

Second, is numerology. Attributing meanings to “numbers” in a monument is always a risky procedure. In this case, a “key number” of the alleged calendar, 12, is not recognizable anywhere, as well as any means of taking into account the additional epagomenal day every four years, while other “numbers” are simply ignored (for instance, the Stonehenge portal was made of two stones). Thus, the theory suffers also from the so-called “selection effect”, a procedure in which only the elements favourable to a desired interpretation are extracted from the material records.

Finally, cultural paragons. The first elaboration of the 365 plus 1-day calendar is documented in Egypt only two millennia later than Stonehenge (and entered into use further centuries later). Thus, even if the builders took the calendar from Egypt, they refined it on their own. In addition, they invented on their own also a building to control time, since nothing of this kind ever existed in ancient Egypt – probably the Egyptians reflected the drift of their 365-day

calendar through the seasons in their architecture but this is far different. Besides, a transfer and elaboration of notions with Egypt occurred around 2600 BC and has no archaeological basis.

All in all, the alleged “Neolithic” solar-precise Stonehenge calendar is shown to be a purely modern construct whose archaeoastronomical and calendrical bases are flawed.

As occurred many times in the past – for instance, for the claims (shown untenable by modern research) that Stonehenge was used to predict eclipses – the monument returns to its role of the silent witness of the sacred landscape of its builders, a role which – as Magli and Belmonte stress – does not take anything away from his extraordinary fascination and importance.

Antiquity

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