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Rediscovering Khrami Didi Gora, Georgia’s Famous Neolithic Settlement

The Shomu-Shulaveri Neolithic culture, located in the heart of the Transcaucasian region, continues to captivate researchers. This prehistoric phenomenon, which spans the territories of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, is distinguished by its unique local characteristics. While much research has focused on communities in Armenia and Azerbaijan, settlements in Georgia, particularly Khrami Didi Gora – the largest of them all, remain mostly unexplored. Known for their agricultural and craftsmanship skills, the people of this society also appear to have had profound spiritual beliefs, as evidenced by the small anthropomorphic figurines discovered at this archaeological site. However, what did these beliefs entail? How did rituals shape their daily life and worldview? These lingering questions continue to challenge researchers, awaiting answers that may unlock the mysteries of the people belonging to this fascinating archaeological culture.

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Pre-Columbian ‘Puppets’ indicate ritual connections across Central America

  • Five expressive ceramic figurines have been discovered atop a large pyramidal structure at Preclassic San Isidro, El Salvador. 

  • Their movable heads and positioning suggest they were a kind of puppet, used in ritual scenes or ‘tableaus’.

  • Similarities with examples from other Central American countries imply interaction and shared ritual traditions across this vast region.

  • This contradicts the commonly-held belief that El Salvador was culturally isolated from the rest of Central America.

     

    Five figurines from the San Isidro deposit. Scale in centimetres (credit: J. Przedwojewska-Szymańska/PASI)

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Unpublished documents from Pathyris – the demotic Gebelein temple archive

The Ptolemaic Pathyris Project, funded by the National Science Centre (Polonez Bis 2 program, grant no. 2022/45/P/HS3/01807) and hosted by the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences, aims to reconstruct the urban layout and domestic architecture of Pathyris, a town located approximately 30 km southwest of Luxor in the Gebelein micro-region, using archival, papyrological, and geospatial data.

The site has yielded a vast collection of Greek and Demotic (an ancient Egyptian script used between the 7th century BCE and the 5th century CE) papyri, ostraca, and wooden tablets. To date, around 1,300 documents have been published, and many of the family archives have been extensively studied, providing a unique glimpse into various socio-economic aspects of Ptolemaic society

The lecture by Professor Quack, originally scheduled for February 18, 2025, has been postponed to April 2, 2025, at 1:00 PM.
Place: Maria Skłodowska-Curie Hall (1st floor), Staszic Palace, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330, and online.[Wykł

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Decorated Wari gourd vessels from Castillo de Huarmey

When we discover pre-Hispanic ruins, we often come across fragments of gourds, which might have been used as vessels or containers (Spanish: mates). Some are undecorated, others – much less common – bear rich shell inlay and pyrography (Spanish: mates pirograbados). Such exceptional items were unearthed at Castillo de Huarmey, a royal Wari necropolis. The technology of their production and their decoration deliver a lot of information about the iconography of power in the first empire of the pre-Colombian Andes.

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Thousand years after Castillo: Chinese immigrants in Huarmey

One of the most unexpected and surprising discoveries at Castillo de Huarmey site were the burials dated to the very beginning of the 20th century. They were found within palacio, which is the architectural establishment located at the foot of the hill on which the mausoleum is situated, from which the Castillo de Huarmey is best known. The whole area of this archaeological site functioned as a burial site at least since the Early Horizon (see: Tysiąc lat przed Castillo: Atypowe pochówki z Huarmey ENG!) through the Middle Horizon (these burials were associated with the presence of the Wari Empire in the area), to the Late Horizon. However, discovery of the much younger burials indicate that Castillo functioned as the funeral zone in the minds of even 20th-century residents of the Huarmey Valley. Certainly the hill and overlooking mausoleum, were strongly distinguished in the local landscape (before the great earthquake of 1970 probably it might dominate evenmore so than today), was considered as huaca, which means a “sacred place.” Similar to the platforms of the Moche Valley, or those in the area of modern Lima (e.g. Huaca Pucllana located in Miraflores district).

 

DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS PHOTOS OF HUMAN REMAINS

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Kuwaiti-Polish Team Discovers Figurine, Local Pottery, and Environmental Clues

The Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological Mission (KPAM) finished this year’s season of work at Bahra 1, a prehistoric site in the
Al-Subiyah desert of Northern Kuwait. Dating back to the mid-6th millennium BCE, Bahra 1 is among the oldest and largest known settlements in the Arabian Peninsula.

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A thousand years before the Castillo: deviant burials from Huarmey

Although the archaeological site of the Castillo de Huarmey is mainly known for discoveries connected with the presence of the Wari culture in this region (mausoleums and burials associated with elites of this pre-Inca empire), both earlier and more recent features can be found within its area. A cemetery which could be even a thousand years older than the famous Mausoleum was unearthed in the close proximity to the site.

 

DISCLAIMER: This article contains the photographs of human remains

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“Fire walk with me”. Cremation burial practices in Tierra Caliente, Michoacán

Cremation is one of the most common types of burial rites practiced by various communities around the world. Nevertheless, the first associations that spring to mind for these practices, during which the remains of the deceased were consumed by fire, would lead us in the direction of the Vikings or the inhabitants of much of Northern Europe during the Late Bronze Age or Iron Age. In this case, however, a doctoral student at the University of Warsaw and editor of Archeowieści will tell the story of a particular area of western Mexico where, more than six centuries ago, cremation was the main funeral rite for at least a part of the Indigenous community. Burials associated with the local community of this region were recently discovered in the Middle Balsas River valley, which constitutes the border between the states of Michoacán and Guerrero. Traces of these funerary practices are the subject of a remarkably important study conducted by the author in collaboration with researchers from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia Michoacán and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, under the direction of Dr. José Luis Punzo Díaz.

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Llamas in the jungle? Or what do we know about the camelid presence on the eastern slopes of the Andes

Llamas (Lama glama) and alpacas (Vicugna pacos) are the only large, domesticated, and endemic mammals in the Peruvian Andes. They had immense significance for all pre-Columbian Andean cultures by providing essential resources such as meat, wool for textile production, bones for tool and ornament manufacturing, and dung used as fuel and fertilizer. Llamas and alpacas held an important place in pre-Columbian iconography. Their images were depicted on pottery, textiles, and on rocks in the form of petroglyphs and carvings. More robust llamas also served as pack animals and traversed the Andes in trade caravans.

Unfortunately for zooarchaeologists (scientists studying the relationships between humans and animals in the past), all South American camelid species are genetically related, which complicates their species identification if based solely on animal bones recovered during archaeological fieldwork. For this reason, in Andean zooarchaeology, they are conventionally referred to as “camelids.”

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Creations of Power: Depicting the Royal Family and Clergy in Medieval Nubia in Louvre!

©Paulina Matusiak & Eddy Wenting

On October 17, the Louvre Museum will host the premiere presentation of the interdisciplinary scientific project “Creations of Power: Depicting the Royal Family and Clergy in Medieval Nubia” on the costumes reconstructed on the basis of Faras paintings from the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw and the Sudanese National Museum in Khartoum. A popularization session at Sorbonne University will also be initiated.

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