Petition: Stop Spike TV from looting our collective past
I’m serious guys, this is really fucking important.
Archaeological sites can only be dug up once. They want to go in with metal detectors, locate ‘treasure’, bulldoze it, and sell it. If there’s an artefact there,…
Serious business, guys.
June 28, 2011 - Conversione di San Paolo Apostolo in Roccapelago, in the Emilia Romagna Apennines.
During the restoration of the church of Roccapelago, about 100 natural mummies were uncovered, along with nearly 200 other burials. Burials dated from the mid-16th to 18th centuries. Skin and hair is remarkably well preserved on many of the bodies. Textile experts determined the clothes found on the bodies, including tunics, socks, and caps, were typical of mountain-folk, fitting perfectly with the village’s location. The church crypt was used in the later centuries as a less organized tomb: bodies were wrapped in shrouds and dropped through a trap-door. This created an unusual pyramid of bodies in the chamber, with many in awkward positions from the fall. Necklaces, rings, religious medallions, and crucifixes were found along with the bodies.
Most of the bodies still have their hands held together in prayer.
Summarized from a photo essay by Rosella Lorenzi.
*SBAER = Archaeological Superintendency of Emilia Romagna.
(Source: news.discovery.com)
June 28, 2011 - Conversione di San Paolo Apostolo in Roccapelago, in the Emilia Romagna Apennines.
During the restoration of the church of Roccapelago, about 100 natural mummies were uncovered, along with nearly 200 other burials. Burials dated from the mid-16th to 18th centuries. Skin and hair is remarkably well preserved on many of the bodies. Textile experts determined the clothes found on the bodies, including tunics, socks, and caps, were typical of mountain-folk, fitting perfectly with the village’s location. The church crypt was used in the later centuries as a less organized tomb: bodies were wrapped in shrouds and dropped through a trap-door. This created an unusual pyramid of bodies in the chamber, with many in awkward positions from the fall. Necklaces, rings, religious medallions, and crucifixes were found along with the bodies.
Most of the bodies still have their hands held together in prayer.
Summarized from a photo essay by Rosella Lorenzi.
*SBAER = Archaeological Superintendency of Emilia Romagna.
(Source: news.discovery.com)
This tiny (3 inch) ritual mask of serpentine, with traces of cinnabar on the face, dates from around 900BC. It represents the stone-working skill of the Olmec civilization. It was collected in 1926 in the Tabasco region of Mexico.
dinosaurusrex asked: know any schools besides the american university if cairo that offers egyptology as undergrad or grad?
sorry to bother! a please and thankyou
I’m not sure about other schools since my focus is in Classical archaeology, but I do know that my college, Bryn Mawr College, offers Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology as a major. It’s considered one of the best programs in the country. Don’t let the single sex aspect scare you!
You can choose to specialise in Near Eastern archaeology (many of my friends do), but you are required to take a course in classical archaeology during your time here. Likewise, if you specialise in Classical, you need to take a course on Near Eastern. Next semester, I’ll be taking a course on Egyptian archaeology to fulfil that major requirement. While at Bryn Mawr, you can also choose to take classes at UPenn. I’m only mentioning this because they offer Middle Egyptian as a language, and that can help you out a ton! Bryn Mawr will compensate for all travel expenses since you’d have to get to UPenn by the regional rail.
Here’s the department page: http://brynmawr.edu/archaeology/
I absolutely love it here. I understand that Bryn Mawr is not for everyone, so I’ll look around later for some other schools that offer Egyptian archaeology (it’s almost 3 AM here…).
Happy digging!
-Sasha
NOTES
It’s a well-established truth that archaeologists are slightly insane. Normal people don’t enjoy waking up at 4:30am six days a week to do physical labor in extreme sun and high temperatures, working alongside all variety of disturbing, potentially poisonous insects. (Okay, admittedly, put like that, it doesn’t sound super appealing.) But every year, hundreds of professors, students, and eager adventurers pack their work boots, sunscreen, and trowels into backpacks and head out to domestic and international excavation sites to put themselves through an average 6-8 weeks of the aforementioned work environment. What’s the appeal?Archaeology, mainly thanks to the Indiana Jones franchise and the over-emphasized chest of Lara Croft, is commonly perceived as a pseudoscientific pursuit that mainly targets bright, shiny objects. Conveniently, these objects turn out to be extremely valuable or possess mysterious supernatural powers. Unfortunately, the entire field historically developed out of a pursuit of such items, so the contemporary push to study cultures for the sake of cultural significance rather than monetary value has been a slow change.
For example, consider the most prevalent archaeological discoveries commonly known in contemporary society. Tutankhamen, or “King Tut!” as he has been affectionately dubbed, remains one of the most popular international attractions to date. This is due in no small part to the allure of the mythic curse surrounding the mummy and the original excavations. No less sensational, though definitively less historically-grounded, are the annual claims of finding Noah’s Ark, artifacts from the time of Jesus, and other biblically-charged “discoveries.” The drive for prestige based on the level of popularity and attention given to the find remains, sadly, one of the biggest obstructions to a true conception of what archaeology is and the importance it carries.
Just like cinematic sex scenes and the ability of movie protagonists to get through airport security without a ticket, archaeology is far less glamorous and exciting than Hollywood would have you believe. But this sentence remains true if the only reason one pursues archaeology is for the discovery of shiny things. Begone, magpies! Archaeology is for academics and historical enthusiasts. And no amount of physical pain, sunburns, or insect bites can detract from the high-energy, tense, exciting environment unique to an archaeological dig.
Every day is an uncertainty. There are the days where you dig and dig and find nothing more than bone fragments and pottery sherds. (And, on some digs, not even those.) Yet the potential always exists…the potential for a complete vessel, an inscription, a piece of jewelry, a burial, a temple, and, naturally, the hope of finding the archaeological discovery of the century. While such larger discoveries are not infrequent, more often, daily searches in the ground uncover more gratifying, albeit smaller discoveries. Perhaps one day a door is revealed, marked only by the rectangular pattern of stone. Another morning the dirt flakes perfectly off a lower layer, marking an ancient floor. And the next afternoon a piece of mosaic might be uncovered.
Each piece of history, however insignificant, is a piece of history taken directly from its time period. (Assuming the excavation has an undisturbed stratigraphy!) As an excavator, being able to hold even the smallest sherd of pottery, in the knowledge that you are the first person to interact with that artifact since it was buried, however many hundreds or thousands of years ago, is an emotion of wonder, passion, and exhilaration.
So yes, archaeologists are insane. There are much less strenuous ways to spend the best months of the year…or are there? For archaeologists, the addiction to the dirt, the history, and the potential for wonder are an irresistible draw. And for almost anyone, the excavations are a place, where for two months every year, you get to share and enjoy the experience with a group of people just as crazy as you are.
You know how this blog’s main page caption is “This isn’t Indiana Jones. This is…archaeology!?”
Well…this (well, that above anecdote) is archaeology!
I will just add my two cents, however. A good friend of mine posted this as her Facebook status a few days ago: “Decided to show up to my first Archaeology of Ancient Egypt class in full Indiana Jones attire.”
I used this as an opportunity (after first joking that I’d “keel” her) to mention that the propagation of the Indiana Jones stereotype is not cool. It’s really hard to proudly declare your major to the world only to have it be shut down or viewed as a joke. Hopefully, this blog shows that archaeology is a serious pursuit. It is also my hope that you can all see that it is also an incredibly fun field, and it doesn’t have to rely on killing Nazis or running from booby traps to be fun. It’s just innately awesome. ;)
Indiana Jones has his place. But it is not here (well, except for that hipster meme I posted a few months ago as a humourous space filler…).
That said, I have two exams and a paper left to go (I finished archaeology yesterday! Yay!). After that, be prepared for a more regular posting schedule. Summer’s a comin’!
-Sasha
NOTES
NOTES
“Archaeologists say they have found part of an ancient ship near Rome during repair work to a bridge. The 11 metre vessel is one of the largest ancient vessels excavated near Ostia Antica, a port city founded some 2,500 years ago.”
(via Past Horizons)
There’s a nice example of the black and white style of mosaic which is so commonly found in Ostia!
(This link is to a post on my personal blog…I am silly and posted this to my regular blog and then realized I couldn’t reblog it from this one…whoops.)
Here is an interesting article about a new internet-based system to monitor archaeological sites and heritage landmarks, while facilitating communication among professionals, scholars, governments, and volunteers.
During a survey of a flooded cave system, the Aktun-Hu system in Quintana Roo, Mexico, divers explored the Hoyo Negro. This deep pit contained skeletal remains of a mastodon and a human skull. This skull may be one of the earliest humans ever discovered in the Americas.
“During the Late Pleistocene, these caves were dry. The first people to occupy what is now the Caribbean coast of Mexico wandered into these caves, where some ultimately met their demise. As the last glacial maximum came to end, the melting of the polar ice caps and continental ice sheets raised sea levels worldwide. The caves of the Yucatan Peninsula filled with water and the First Americans were hidden for millennia — only to be discovered by underwater cave explorers. It is within these dark reaches that cave explorers are discovering and documenting the oldest human skeletons yet found in the Western Hemisphere,” archaeologist Dominique Rissolo said.
So apparently Tumblr ate a bunch my queued posts, and you probably have all been lacking in archaeological awesomeness.
I’m raging but I’m gonna try again with the queue. I’ll post some more stuff later tonight to make up for it. =]
Also, feel free to suggest time periods/traditions/regions you’d like to see here.
- Lauren
