Archaeology
Dragon sculpture found on the Jiankou section of the Great Wall of China
Archaeologists conducting restoration works on the Jiankou section of the Great Wall of China have discovered an ornate dragon sculpture.
The Great Wall of China refers to a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China.
The wall served multiple purposes: it defended against nomadic invaders from the Eurasian Steppe, provided border control for goods along the Silk Road, and regulated immigration and emigration.
The Jiankou section of the wall, located 100 km’s north of Beijing, runs along a series of jagged mountains for a length of 20 km’s. This section was built in the 1500s and early 1600s during the Ming Dynasty, where it has been left relatively untouched and reclaimed by nature over the centuries.
The discovery was made by members of the Beijing Institute of Archaeology, who were exploring a collapsed defensive tower (tower No. 12) in a dense forested area on a mountain ridge.
While excavating a corridor within the tower’s interior, archaeologists unexpectedly came across an architectural element with carved scales. As they removed additional layers of soil, a tail emerged, followed by claws, and eventually the head of a carved dragon sculpture was revealed.
Shang Heng from the Beijing Institute of Archaeology, said: “You can see that the scales on its body are very delicate, and the details of the mouth, eyes, nose, etc. are all carved. It can be imagined that in the Ming Dynasty, the enemy tower No. 120 was very tall and magnificent, and the architectural details were also very exquisite.”
According to the archaeologists, the sculpture would originally have been positioned on the roof of the tower, indicating that the defender of the tower held a high status in the Ming Imperial army.
Excavations also uncovered a palm-sized black and red “iron rod” with a semicircular ring, identified as the sub-gun of a Portuguese lance first introduced from Europe during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty.
Header Image Credit : Pan Zhiwang
Sources : The Institute of Archaeology CASS
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeology
Ornate grave goods found in Murom burial ground
Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
The Finnic Muromians were groups of settlers that lived within the vicinity of the Volga and Oka rivers. They spoke Muromian, an Uralic language that became extinct following their assimilation by the Slavs.
The burial ground, which dates from the early 10th century AD, was discovered on the eastern bank of the Oka river, located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region of Russia.
A total of seventeen burial pits have been identified, nine of which have been severely damaged through looting.
The surviving 8 burials contain the remains of four children, two women, and two men.
The men were accompanied with an ornate collection of grave goods, including arrowheads, knives, bronze bracelets, iron plates, a bronze buckle, and a whetstone.
At the bottom of one of the pits is a heavily corroded axe, along with a flint that has traces of iron-coated embossed leather and textile threads.
The burials containing women were also accompanied with high status funerary goods, such as a necklace of red-brown prismatic and dark blue berry-shaped beads of Byzantine origin, signet ring-shaped pendants, plate bracelets, a bronze spiral, and a silver ring.
Traces of wood within the pit fillings suggest that they originally contained a wooden structure, similar to a log house made of thin beams and covered with birch bark.
According to the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The culmination of the discoveries at the site were two clay vessels, testifying to direct and close contacts between the right-bank Muromians and the Old Russian population.”
Header Image Credit : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sources : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeology
Ghastly finds at gallows execution site
![](https://conspirazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/gast2-S78Iej.jpeg)
Archaeologists from the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt are currently excavating the site of a former gallows in Quedlinburg, Germany.
Gallows are usually wooden structures made of two vertical posts, a horizontal crossbeam, and a hanging noose. They have been used for executing criminals by hanging, a prevalent form of capital punishment in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a gallows site on Galgenberg, or ‘Gallows Hill,’ which was used for public executions by the courts in Quedlinburg from 1662 to 1809.
Excavations have revealed complete and partial burials in the area, along with bone pits containing multiple bundled burials, likely the result of mass executions carried out in a short period.
Image Credit : LDA
According to the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt, “these discoveries provide unique insights into penal practices from the Middle Ages and early modern times.”
A burial unrelated to the gallows has also been unearthed, featuring a wooden coffin containing the skeletal remains of an individual buried with a rosary chain.
Archaeologists propose that the burial’s characteristics suggest that the individual was likely a suicide victim, denied burial in consecrated ground so was placed in the cemetery near the gallows.
Also discovered is a so-called ‘revenant grave’, where the skeletal remains of a man was found placed on his back with several large stones placed across his chest.
According to the researchers, the stones were likely placed to prevent the individual from rising as a revenant, which are described as animated corpses in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups.
In medieval times, those inflicted with the revenant condition were generally suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit, or the victim of a vampiric attack.
Header Image Credit : LDA
Sources : State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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