Archaeology
Fragments of large wall painting found in Cartagena’s Roman theatre
Archaeologists have discovered fragments from a wall painting that decorated a portico in Cartagena’s Roman theatre.
Cartagena was founded as a Carthaginian city in 228 BC in south-eastern Iberia, Spain. The city was called Qart Hadasht, meaning “new city”, and served as a staging point for Carthaginian incursions into Spain.
The Roman general, Scipio Africanus, conquered the city in 209 BC, and renamed it as Carthago Nova, emerging as the capital of the Roman province of Carthaginensis.
Between 5 and 1 BC, the Romans constructed a large, monumental theatre, which had a cavea that could hold up to 7,000 spectators for public performances and ceremonies.
Image Credit : Felipe G. Pagan
The theatre was discovered in 1988 during the construction of the Centro regional de artesanía, resulting in a long-term project of restoration and reconstruction, turning the theatre into an open-air museum.
Recent excavations by a team of archaeologists have discovered over 2,000 fragments from a large mural painting. The painting decorated the walls of a portico (porticus post scaenam) with a double porticoed gallery, revolving around a central room housing a garden at the back of the stage in the western section of the theatre complex.
The discovery adds to 1,500 fragments previously uncovered in 2006, allowing the researchers to continue the process of restoring the painting to its original design with more accuracy.
Although restoration is still in its early stages, depictions of ornate Roman figures are beginning to emerge, in addition to linear artistic features.
Excavations are planned to explore the central garden, where the researchers hope to find evidence of flower beds, piping that fed water to fountains, as well as understand how water was used to maintain the flora in the open space.
Header Image Credit : Felipe G. Pagan
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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