Archaeology
Traces of Khan al-Tujjar caravanserais found at foot of Mount Tabor
During excavations near Beit Keshet in Lower Galilee, Israel, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered traces of a market within the historic Khan al-Tujjar caravanserais.
Khan al-Tujjar, meaning “merchants caravanserais”, was a resting and meeting place for merchants travelling on the trading routes between Damascus and Cairo, and between Transjordan and Acre.
Typically, a caravanserais functioned as a hostel and market, supporting the flow of commerce, information, and people as they journeyed across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, most notably the Silk Road.
The caravanserais at Khan al-Tujjar was founded during the late 16th century by Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha, an Albanian-born statesman who served five times as Grand Vizier until his death.
Describing Khan al-Tujjar, the Ottoman traveller, Dervish Mehmed Zillî, said: “It is a square, perfect fortress, built of masonry in the midst of a large, verdant meadow. It has a circumference of six hundred paces. The garrison consists of a warden and 150 men. It has a ‘double’ iron gate facing north.”
Located within Khan al-Tujjar was the Mosque of Sinan Pasha, an ornately decorated structure decorated with light blue glass enamel and rock crystal. Towering above the mosque was three minarets and seven tall domes.
Recent excavations have uncovered a compacted layer of soil containing numerous finds from the Mamluk and Ottoman periods (15th–18th centuries). According to IAA archaeologists, the finds provide a rare glimpse into the merchant market that functioned for centuries in the area between an adjacent fort and the khan.
The team found traces of animal bones belonging to dogs, horses, camels, sheep and cattle, indicative of the livestock industry and animal trading which is corroborated in a mid-19th century account by W. M. Thomson, an American Protestant missionary who worked in Ottoman Syria.
In addition, a large number of ceramic smoking pipes were found, which historical sources recount on how merchants would sit at shop entrances drinking coffee and smoking pipes.
Edna Amos-Dalali, the excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said: “The excavation also uncovered a variety of pottery vessels, some made locally, and others imported from regions such as Syria, Turkey, Italy, and China, alongside finds such as rings and jewellery. These finds provide material evidence of the large market that operated at the site.”
Header Image Credit : Internet Archive Book
Sources : IAA
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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
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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