Author: j.chyla

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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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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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EuroWeb: A new look at textile production in Europe

EuroWeb is a four-year research action integrating multidisciplinary research on European textiles from antiquity to the present day. Led by Professor Agata Ulanowska of the University of Warsaw, EuroWeb has united nearly 250 researchers, creators and designers.  The action changes the view of Europe’s past by considering the role of textile and textile production as a factor in the formation of European culture and identity. One of the results of the team’s activities is the Digital Atlas of European Textile Heritage, which provides data on 7,000 years of European textile heritage.

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How can we know an ancient prison when we see one?

How can we know an ancient prison when we see one? The question is a bit tricky, because prisons have proven challenging to identify in the archaeological record. One might ask, after all, aren’t they just rooms like any other rooms: four walls, single entry and exit, and a door with a locking device? What makes them different from other spaces? 

While there are certain outliers, the traditional understanding has been that prisons are generic rooms and hard, if not impossible, to distinguish. In fact, an archaeologist of the stature of Luke Lavan has recently claimed: 

“Of prisons we know little. We have no securely identified architectural evidence.” 

(Lavan 2007: 121) 

While this comment is incorrect, it does reflect the state-of-the-field in archaeology when it comes to identifying prisons. At a different level, while a few (and growing) number of prisons have been identified by excavators during the course of the 20th century, many experts would admit that they have no idea what a Roman prison looks like, which reflects the lack of anything like a typology of ancient Roman prisons. 

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Workshop on Bioarchaeology in Mesopotamia

From February 29 to March 2, 2024 an online, free workshop on “Bioarchaeology in Mesopotamia” will showcase state-of-the-art bioarchaeological research in Mesopotamia.

“Bioarchaeology” is a broad umbrella term for research on biological remains recovered from archaeological contexts. Bioarchaeologists provide information on human health, diet, workload, mobility, and more. They reconstruct past ecologies and reveal ancient changes in climate. They illuminate economies and social structures, revealing how foods were produced, homes were furnished, and cities were cleaned (or not). They contribute information vital to understanding why people in the past settled where they did, and why they abandoned settlements.

Workshop on Bioarchaeology in Mesopotamia/ورشة العمل حول البيوأثرولوجيا في بلاد ما بين النهرين

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Toro Muerto – researching pre-Columbian petroglyphs

The archaeological site of Toro Muerto, one of the largest assemblages of rock art in the world, lies in a small desert valley to the west of the Andean foothills. Much of it is decorated with petroglyphs (rock engravings) created by representatives of several local cultures who, over many centuries (probably from the beginning of our era until Inca times), came to this unique site to take part in ceremonies.

Watch the video describing the research at the site

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Seventy-three intact burials with carved masks discovered at Pachacámac

Seventy-three intact burials in burial bundles, some with carved masks, have just been discovered at Pachacámac. The site of the find is an extensive complex of cemeteries from different periods at the foot of the Painted Temple. Nearby, wooden staff with images of dignitaries of the Wari Empire were also discovered.

The burials date from the second half of the Middle Horizon, that is, the time of the Wari Empire. The burial bundles were initially deposited individually and later also in groups. The state of preservation for most of them is spectacular.

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Stinky problem – where did the Maya go to the toilet?

Imagine an ancient Maya city in its heyday. You will probably see its ceremonial core, with lofty pyramids, elevated palaces, extensive plazas, and everything is either painted bright red, or blinding white. You notice courtiers strolling along private patios, and servants rushing in all directions with their daily tasks. Perhaps there you can catch a glimpse of the ruler, sitting on his cushioned throne somewhere in the guts of a complicated maze of corridors in his palace. There is a sound of a gentle breeze blowing through the roofcombs, and a murmur of indistinguishable conversations. Faint smells of food mix with those of flowers… Then you step outside of the core, and everything changes. Perishable architecture intertwines with small houselot gardens, there are people everywhere, and they all seem to be shouting. Dogs are barking, some turkeys block your way, kids play in a muddy puddle, and you feel nauseous because of the ever-present smell of human waste mixed with odors of organic decay…

Hang on, hang on! Is that really a plausible picture?

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Archaeology of the invisible: how proteins and carbon isotopes help to reconstruct the human past

Dr. Helen Fewlass is an archaeological scientist in the Ancient Genomics Lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, UK. As an EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Crick, she studies proteins in ancient bones and fossils to tell how old they are and to investigate the process of human evolution. She is now collaborating with the researchers of the Faculty of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw in many scientific projects which involve radiocarbon dates and their interpretation. Archeowieści reached out to her for a little interview about her job and the connection of her field of expertise with the archaeological world. Continue reading “Archaeology of the invisible: how proteins and carbon isotopes help to reconstruct the human past”

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The impact of metal object recording strategies at Mycenae in 1939

Metal objects from Mycenae are some of the most famous in the archaeological world. Homer memorably described Agamemnon’s Mycenae as “rich in gold”, proven accurate in 1876 when Henrich Schliemann uncovered tombs filled with astonishing gold artefacts, amongst many other valuable treasures.

Trudging through field notes kept in an obscure archaeological notebook for the 1939 archaeological excavations at Mycenae led to an unexpected discovery: a cache of metal artefacts from a rubbish pit near the monumental Treasury of Atreus tomb, the so-called “Atreus bothros”. Yet the objects are unpublished and almost all are missing from the official finds catalogue! What happened to them? The mystery could only be solved by travelling back to 1939…

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