Archaeology
Archaeologists use muography to reveal hidden chamber in Naples
A team of archaeologists have used muography to reveal a hidden chamber in the necropolis of Neapolis in Naples, Italy.
Neapolis was a Greek city founded during the 3rd century BC, whose remains are located around 10 metres beneath the current street level in the Sanità neighbourhood of present-day Naples.
The city emerged as an important trading centre in Magna Graecia and the Mediterranean, but would eventually be absorbed into the expanding Roman Republic around 327 BC.
The study was conducted by the University of Naples Federico II and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), in collaboration with the University of Nagoya (Japan).
The team applied muography, a technique that uses cosmic ray muons to generate three-dimensional images of volumes using information contained in the Coulomb scattering of the muons.
Since muons are much more deeply penetrating than X-rays, muon tomography can be used to image through much thicker material than x-ray based tomography such as CT scanning.
Several detectors capable of detecting muons were placed underground in the highly populated “Sanità” district at a depth of 18 metres to measure the muon flux over several weeks.
Measurements of the differential flux in a wide angular range have enabled the researchers to produce a radiographic image of the upper layers that has revealed known and unknown structures beneath the ground surface.
One of the most interesting structures is an inaccessible hidden chamber from the Hellenistic period, which according to the researchers likely contains a burial.
“From the number of muons that arrive at the detector from different directions, it is possible to estimate the density of the material they have passed through,” said lead author Valeri Tioukov, a researcher at the INFN of Naples. “We found an excess in the data that can only be explained by the presence of a new burial chamber.”
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32626-0
Header Image Credit : Tioukov, V., Morishima, K., Leggieri, C. et al
Archaeologists from the University of Warwick are conducting an underwater study to document the submerged Mesolithic site of Bouldnor Cliff before it vanishes due to erosion.
Bouldnor Cliff is situated in the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the southern coast of England. The site was first discovered in 1999 when divers observed a lobster discarding worked flint tools from its burrow on the seabed.
At a time when Britain was cut off from mainland Europe by rising sea levels, the area of the Solent was a river valley inhabited by an advanced Mesolithic community who developed a boat building technology 2,000 years ahead of their time.
The study aims to find new data on the nature of the late Ice Age environment during the development of the Mesolithic era, and the extent of the interaction between the inhabitants of Bouldnor Cliff and Europe, including the exchange of materials.
Professor Robin Allaby, who is leading the expedition, said: “This is an incredible opportunity to understand the lost world in which the Mesolithic developed using the latest techniques before our chance is gone.”
The study will involve a comprehensive palaeoenvironmental analysis, in addition to state-of-the-art techniques such as optical simulated luminescence for constructing ecological profiles. Furthermore, archaeologists intend to recover archaeological artefacts and environmental markers to reconstruct the past environment.
Dr Kinnaird adds: “This is an exciting research project to showcase the new innovations in luminescence dating, which can tell when an object was last exposed to the Sun. The relevance of this technique in writing the narratives for 4000 years of history, at the time that the British coastline was rapidly changing, is huge!”
According to the researchers, these discoveries carry the potential to significantly transform our comprehension of the era when Britain emerged as an island.
Header Image Credit : University of Warwick
Sources : University of Warwick
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
A study of the “Excalibur” sword found in Valencia has been revealed to have Islamic origins sometime during the 10th century AD.
Valencia is one of the oldest cities in Spain, founded under the name of Valentia Edetanorum by the Romans in 138 BC.
The city was conquered by the Moors in the 8th century AD, and was destroyed by Abd al-Rahman I of the Umayyad dynasty. Under Caliphate rule, the wider city area became known as Madînat al-Turâb (meaning “city of earth” or “sand”).
The sword was discovered back in 1994 in a house on Valencia’s Historiador Chabàs Street, where it was found standing upright in a grave beneath an Islamic era house.
Dubbed “Excalibur” due to the circumstances of its discovery, the sword is made from iron and has a hilt decorated with bronze plates. In mythology, Excalibur was the legendary sword of King Arthur and appears in various medieval poems describing Arthur pulling the sword from a stone.
However, the “Excalibur” from Valencia was found in a sedimentary strata from the 10th century AD and was likely the weapon of a cavalryman from the Andalusian Caliphate Era.
According to the archaeologists, the sword measures 46 centimetres in length and has a slightly curved blade towards the tip. Swords from this period are rarely found well-preserved due to the levels of oxygen and water in the soil that causes oxidation of the iron.
“It is the first Islamic sword that appears in the city of Valencia, with only one similar example being found during the excavations of Medina Azahara, the caliphal city of Abd al-Rahman III, in Córdoba,” said the Valencia City Council.
Header Image Credit : The Archaeology Service (SIAM) of the Valencia City Council
Sources : Valencia City Council
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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