Archaeology
Study reveals oldest and longest example of Vasconic script
A new study of the 2100-year-old Hand of Irulegi has revealed the oldest and longest example of Vasconic script.
The Hand of Irulegi was discovered in 2021 during excavations of an ancient settlement at the base of Castillo de IRULEGIko gaztelua near Pamplona, Spain.
The hand dates from the 1st century BC during the Roman Sertoria Wars (80 to 72 BC), a period of conflict between a faction of Roman rebels (Sertorians) and the government in Rome (Sullans).
A recent study, published in the journal Antiquity, has revealed that the inscribed text on the hand is written in the Vasconic language, potentially linked to present-day Basque.
This connection is supported by the identification of the Basque term for ‘good fortune’ on the artefact, suggesting that it served as a good luck charm or was a dedication to a pre-Roman deity.
Basque is one of the last descendants of the ‘Palaeo-European’ languages, spoken before Indo-European languages were introduced from migrating people originating from the Eurasian Steppe during the Bronze Age.
“The Irulegi hand is the only long written text retrieved to date, alongside several coins minted in the Vasconic territory,” states lead author of the study Mattin Aiestaran. However, “the lack of other comparative texts makes it difficult to prove a direct link between the Vasconic language spoken at Irulegi and the present-day Basque language.”
“The Irulegi hand must be considered as a well-integrated element within the cultural context of the settlement,” says Aiestaran. “The hand would have had a ritual function, either to attract good luck or as an offering to an indigenous god or goddess of fortune.”
Despite being the only long Vasconic text discovered so far, one of the words is close enough to Basque to be a ‘cognate’, a word that indicates a potential link.
“The discovery of the Hand of Irulegi has opened a new horizon to unravel the history behind the most enigmatic language still alive in Europe: the Basque language,” concludes Mikel Edeso Egia from the Aranzadi Science Society.
Header Image Credit : Antiquity Journal
Sources: Antiquity – A Vasconic inscription on a bronze hand: writing and rituality in the Iron Age Irulegi settlement (Ebro Valley). https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.199
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from Cotswold Archaeology are excavating the crash site of a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress in an English woodland.
The B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC).
The bomber was mainly used in the European theatre for daylight strategic bombing, complimenting the RAF Bomber Command’s night bombers in attacking German industrial, military and civilian targets.
Cotswold Archaeology have been tasked by the Defense POW / MIA Accounting Agency to search the crash site for the remains of the pilot, who died when the B-17 crashed following a system failure in 1944.
Image Credit : Cotswold Archaeology
At the time, the plane was carrying a payload of 12,000lbs of Torpex, an explosive comprised of 42% RDX, 40% TNT, and 18% powdered aluminium. Torpex was mainly used for the Upkeep, Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, as well as underwater munitions.
The pilot was declared MIA when the plane exploded into an inferno, however, using modern archaeological techniques, the researchers plan to systematically excavate and sieve the waterlogged crash site to recover plane ID numbers, personal effects, and any surviving human remains.
It is the hope of the excavation team members that they will be able to recover the pilot’s remains and return him to the United States for burial with full military honours.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense whose mission is to recover unaccounted Department of Defense personnel listed as prisoners of war (POW) or missing in action (MIA) from designated past conflicts.
Header Image Credit : Cotswold Archaeology
Sources : Cotswold Archaeology
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists excavating at the ancient Tharsa necropolis have uncovered a Roman Era tomb guarded by two carved bull heads.
Tharsa is located near Kuyulu village in southeastern Turkey along the Adıyaman-Şanlıurfa Highway.
The site was situated on a major Roman highway from Doliche to Samosata, which today consists of a two settlement mounds and a large necropolis that dates from the 3rd century to the Byzantine period.
Excavations first commenced in 2021 which discovered a collection of Turuş Rock Tombs, a type of tomb construction carved directly into the bedrock.
In the latest season, archaeologists have excavated another Turuş Rock Tomb, however, this example was found to have two carved bull heads which is decorated with garlands and rosettes between the horns.
Bull heads, known as Bucranium, were a form of carved decoration commonly used in Classical architecture. In Ancient Rome, bucrania were often used on the friezes of temples in the Doric order of architecture, later influencing the architecture of buildings from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical periods.
Architectural examples of bucrania are representations of the practice of displaying garlanded, sacrificial oxen, whose heads were displayed on the temple walls.
Like similar Turuş Rock Tombs, the bull heads are carved directly into the bedrock, guarding a dozen rock cut steps descending into the burial chamber which has three arched niches known as acrosolia.
Mustafa Çelik, Deputy Director of Adıyaman Museum, said, “Tharsa Ancient City consists of 3 main archaeological areas: Big Mound, Small Mound and Necropolis Area. We started excavations in the necropolis area in 2024. We added 2 more rock tombs to the rock tombs we had previously uncovered. One of them is the rock tomb we identified today.”
Header Image Credit : Adıyaman Museum
Sources : Adıyaman Museum
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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