Archaeology
New monumental statues discovered at Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe
According to a press announcement by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, archaeologists excavating at Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe have uncovered several new monumental statues and architectural elements.
Göbekli Tepe is an ancient ritual complex in the Anatolia Region of Turkey, believed to be the oldest known Mesolithic temple.
The main structures identified have been dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) from around the 10th millennium BC, with further remains of smaller buildings from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), dated to the 9th millennium BC.
Around 40 km’s away is the site of Karahan Tepe, another ritualistic complex corresponding with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Karahan Tepe has similar architectural elements to the Göbekli Tepe II layer, such as 266 pillars with matching T-shaped features.
Recent excavations, which are part of the “Stone Hills Project” (“Taş Tepeler Projesi”), have uncovered new architectural elements and monumental statues, with the most notable being a painted boar statue at Göbeklitepe decorated with red, white, and black pigment.
According to the researchers, the boar statue is one of the oldest known painted statues from the Mesolithic period, which was located on a stone bench decorated with a “H shaped symbol, a crescent, two snakes, and depictions of human faces.
At Karahan Tepe, the team found a 2.3 metre tall statue, described as “one of the most impressive exampls of prehistoric art”. The statue was found fixed in a seated position on a stone bench and is shown holding a phallus in both hands.
Excavations in the vicinity also uncovered a bird statue clearly showing the beak, eyes, and wings, which the team suggest depicts a vulture. Previous excavations have found other animal reliefs depicting: snakes, insects, birds, the head and forelegs of a rabbit, the hind legs and tail of a gazelle, and the hind legs of an unidentified animal.
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Header Image Credit : Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism
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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