Pic: A Blog About History

Archaeologists in Perthshire, Scotland, have unearthed a spectacular early Bronze Age grave containing a gold-banded dagger still wrapped in its 4,000-year-old sheath, which means it is as old as the pyramids. According to a report in The Scotsman, while few traces survive of the body buried in the primitive stone coffin, found near the village of Forteviot, several clues suggest the remains are those of a tribal leader or warrior of “tremendous importance”.

More surprising were the organic materials preserved in the sealed grave. They include a wooden bowl, what may be a leather bag, plant fragments and tree bark.

There were gasps of astonishment from watching archeologists when the grave, which dates back to the time of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, was revealed intact.

“The high quality of preservation is of exceptional importance for understanding the centuries when metals were first introduced into Scotland,” said Dr Kenneth Brophy, of the University of Glasgow.

Only two or three daggers from this period have been found in Scotland, but this find is even more unusual.

“It is also incredibly rare to find some kind of animal skin wrapped around the dagger. The metal is in good condition. It’s a spectacular and unusual find,” Dr Brophy said.

The materials have been brought to Edinburgh for conservation and examination, and are currently being kept in cold storage at the laboratory of the AOC Archaeology Group.

Rated of national importance, the finds are likely to become part of the National Museum of Scotland’s collection.

Markings on the underside of the capstone may be pecked carvings of an axe. Two more axes may also have been pecked into the stone next to where the head would have lain.

According to Dr Brophy, “They dug a huge hole, then placed a stone coffin in the ground, about a metre long and 70 centimetres across. The body would have lain crouched on its side. Then they placed a four-tonne stone on top of it. They would have used ropes and pulleys of some kind. It would have been very crude techniques.”

“The scale of the effort and the unique carvings are all pointing to a person of huge importance,” he added.

The grave had been laid in a bed of quartz pebbles in sand. The Bronze Age chamber was placed in a complex of Stone Age sites at Forteviot, dating perhaps as early as 3,000 BC.

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Pic: Wikipaedia

The Welsh Assembly Government has further signalled its commitment to the Welsh language by announcing that the Welsh language project in Patagonia is to continue for a further three years. Announcing that the project will continue until 2012 whilst meeting a group of Welsh Language students from Patagonia over breakfast, the Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said: "I’m pleased to announce that we have been able not only to continue funding this unique and worthwhile project to maintain the Welsh language in Argentina, but we have also been able to provide a small increase in funding."

The Welsh language project in Patagonia is an initiative funded by the Welsh Assembly Government to boost and sustain the Welsh language in the Chubut Province of Patagonia in Argentina. The project will receive £162,000 over the next 3 years, increase of £21k over the previous three-year period.

The Minister added: "There are strong historical and cultural links between Wales and Chubut and these links enrich both sides. This project helps to keep those links strong and has had considerable success in raising the profile of the Welsh language in the province. I hope that the co-operation with Menter Patagonia to provide opportunities to socialise through the medium of Welsh will further advance the prominence of the language in its South American home."

Isaias Grandis, one of the students friom Chubut studying Welsh at Cardiff University over the summer, said: "The Welsh language is an important part of our identity in Chubut. More people want to learn the language now than ever before and this project will be a great help to developing that"

The programme to support the Welsh language in Patagonia has been running since 1997. The project allows for the secondment of teachers to key target communities, the development of native teachers, the establishment of structured courses and the promotion of Welsh language activities.

The project is managed for the Welsh Assembly Government by the British Council, in collaboration with the Wales-Argentina Society and the Welsh for Adults Centre – Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff University.

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Pic: wikimedia commons

Fascinating discoveries are hoped for as archaeologists today start a dig on the site of Swansea’s 12th century Oystermouth Castle in Wales reports News Wales  Volunteers will work alongside experts as the group excavates outside the castle’s west tower, explores the knoll area and looks for the outer wall and ditch.

Daily guided tours are being organised within a few days of starting the dig and everyone taking part will have the chance to learn about excavation techniques, how to record discoveries and how to deal with objects that are found.

Young people aged under 18 are also encouraged to make a visit to the dig and join in the analysis of what is found.

The event is being organised by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust in partnership with Swansea Council, the Friends of Oystermouth Castle and Swansea University.

Dr Edith Evans, of the Trust, said: "We received a lot of correspondence from people interested in volunteering and are delighted to have accommodated everyone who got their applications in before the deadline.

"Members of the public are welcome to come along for guided tours any day during the dig but I’d suggest people wait for a few days after it starts because the first phase of the project involves the removal of the topsoil."

Graham Thomas, Swansea Council Cabinet Member for Culture, Recreation and Tourism, said: "Oystermouth Castle is one of the most historic landmarks in the area and this dig will allow people to the chance to discover its rich heritage for themselves.

"It will also offer volunteers a fascinating insight into the world of archaeology and will give visitors the chance to access expert tours and updates.

"Some fascinating discoveries may yet be weeks away and I look forward to keeping up with progress."

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Pic: Wiki.

Woo-hoo! The Simpsons are coming. On St Patrick’s Day Homer and Grampa will come home in an episode being broadcast in Ireland ahead of its transmission in the US for the first time in the 20-year history of the show, reports the Irish Times.com. In The Name of the Grandfather sees Homer make Grampa’s dream of a final beer in a pub in the village of Dunkilderry come true.

Homer is prompted into the out-of-character act of kindness for Abe Simpson after forgetting to join him in the father and son three-legged race at Springfield Retirement Castle’s seniors’ sports day.

After a scolding by Marge, Homer takes Grampa across the water to O’Flanagan’s where he claims to have spent the best night of his life. On arrival, however, the village isn’t quite how he remembers it. Continue Reading »

Originally posted 2009-03-01 09:07:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Pic: BBC

Archaeologists and volunteers working at a Perthshire forest claim to have uncovered a “very exciting” find. Excavations have revealed a stone entrance to the Black Spout enclosure, which workers believe indicates an important local person lived there. Radiocarbon dating has also shown the site dates back to about 200 BC – it was originally though such homesteads were from the early centuries AD.

It is thought a large extended family would have lived there. Continue Reading »

Originally posted 2008-06-27 08:35:56. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Now the public has the chance to view the much talked-about discovery, as the coins and the cow’s leg bone in which they were hidden have gone on display at the Town House Museum, King’s Lynn.

The annual summer excavation of a Saxon burial ground in the valley of the Heacham River has also uncovered evidence of an earlier, Iron Age settlement.

The hoard of 32 Gallo-Belgic E staters has been described as the most significant find since the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (Sharp) began in 1996.

Twenty of the coins, depicting a stylised horse on one side, were hidden inside the bone.

Ambiani tribe of Gaul

They are believed to have been made by the Ambiani tribe of Gaul in northern France 2000 years ago, and there are two main theories about why they were buried.

One is that the owner, perhaps a mercenary who had been fighting the Romans in Gaul, had been paid in gold staters and decided to give a votive offering to the gods for his safe passage home.

Alternatively, he may have decided that his precious coins were too valuable to carry around, so hid them in the bone and buried them to be retrieved later. But he was then either killed or forgot where they were.

The hoard was declared treasure and recently acquired by King’s Lynn Museums for £4000, which was raised by the museums’ Friends and contributions from the Museums, Libraries and Archives/Victoria and Albert purchase grant fund and the Headley Trust.

It will become one of the star attractions when Lynn Museum re-opens next year after a £1m redevelopment but has gone on display at the Town House Museum in the meantime.

We thought it would be nice for people to see it – at least temporarily.

said area museums officer Robin Hanley.

It’s a very important discovery and it’s a really interesting story. It’s fantastic to have them in the collections and they’ve attracted an awful lot of interest.

Read the original article at EPD24.

TaraWatch have organised a petition to encourage the United Nations to step in and preserve the Hill of Tara. As at the time of writing, the petition has just under 1,800 signatures and they are attempting to reach 1,000,000. They say: The Hill of Tara, Ireland’s premier national monument and internationally renowned cultural icon, is being desecrated by construction of the M3 motorway. The works are in breach of international law, which protects this site for humanity, and the United Nations must intervene now.

Lying 30 miles north of Dublin, it was Ireland’s capital for millennia; where over 142 kings were crowned, dating back to 3,000 BC. Since then, hundreds of monuments were built on the slopes and in the surrounding landscape. Today, the cultural landscape is defined by the remains of a number of defensive Iron Age hillforts which surround the Hill, lying approximately 2-3 miles away.

THE M3 MOTORWAY

The M3 motorway is being built by the Irish Government, in public private partnership with Siac and Ferrovial construction companies, through the centre of this landscape, and a 50 acre interchange is being built 1,000 metres from the summit. Already, dozens of archaeological sites within the landscape have been excavated and demolished, and construction is due to be completed in 2010. 

The campaign to save Tara, and re-route the M3 motorway has reached a critical point. Celebrities such as Bono, Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Gabriel Byrne, Colm Toibin , Louis le Brocquy and Jim Fitzpatrick, supported by hundreds of international experts in Irish history, archaeology and mythology have spoken out against the M3 route. National surveys show that the vast majority of Irish people want Tara protected, and made into a UNESCO site.

Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney said: 

If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from pre-historic times up to historic times up to completely recently – it was Tara. I think it literally desecrates an area – I mean the word means to de-sacralise and for centuries the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred ground.

The World Monuments Fund, Smithsonian Institution and Sacred Sites International have placed Tara on endangered sites list, and others such as the International Celtic Congress, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Landmarks Foundation, the City of Chicago and theMassachusetts Archaeological Society have issued statements condemning the M3 route.  

The European Commission is currently taking a lawsuit against Ireland in the European Court of Justice against Ireland, for illegally demolishing the Lismullin national monument, which was discovered in the pathway of the M3 in 2007, after being voted on of the Top Ten Most Important Discoveries in the world in 2007 by Archaeology magazine.  The Irish authorities refused to heed the Commission’s demand that demolition be halted, and construction is proceeding despite the EU legal action.  

The Minister for the Environment, John Gormley,  has delayed nomination of the Hill of Tara to become a UNESCO site, until the M3 motorway is complete. UNESCO has stated that it cannot intervene, until Ireland completes the nomination, which was due to take place at the World Heritage Committee Meeting in Seville, in June 2009.

BREACHES OF UN LAW

It is clear that the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Culturaland Natural Heritage protects all sites of outstanding universal value, even if they are not on the World Heritage List. Other UN agreements, such as the UN Global Compact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both human rights Covenants, and the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples also require that Tara receive the highest level of protection possible.

The only body that can now intervene and save the Hill of Tara is the United Nations.  This petition is directed to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, and asks that you intervene in the Tara crisis, and begin a problem-solving initiative, which will protect Tara and allow the M3 to be completed.

The UN must intervene now and enforce UN law, on behalf of the people of Ireland, the Irish Diaspora, and both the global community.

_________________________________________________________

Please forward this petition to:

- all  of your friends 

- local and national Irish cultural groups

- historical and archaeological organisations

- political representatives

WE MUST REACH OUR GOAL OF 1,000,000 signatures by Dec 31, 2009

JOIN TARAWATCH

TaraWatch Web Site

Hill of Tara UNESCO public consultation site, hosted by TaraWatch

TaraWatch Facebook Cause

TaraWatch Facebook Group

TaraWatch USA Facebook Group

TaraWatch Twitter

TaraWatch Yahoogroup

CONTACT TARAWATCH

Suite 108
The Capel Building
Mary’s Abbey
Dublin 7
Republic of Ireland
353-87-132-3365
info@tarawatch.org

Pic: Discovery Online

Archaeologists from Berkshire, UK, have discovered evidence of an Iron Age town underneath the remains of a Roman settlement in north Hampshire, which they say could be Britain’s earliest Iron Age towns with a planned layout. says Discovery Online The discovery was made by the University of Reading’s Archaeology Department, which has been excavating at the Silchester Roman site, Calleva Atrebatum, since 1997. A street-grid was found to have been in place before the Romans came in AD 43. Archaeologists have also discovered evidence of widespread burning at the site.

They believe this, along with other finds, suggests that the site could have been destroyed at the hands of queen Boudicca, who in AD 60/61 led a major uprising against the occupying Roman forces.

“After 12 summers of excavation, we have reached down to the 1st Century AD and are beginning to see the first signs of what we believe to be the Iron Age and earliest Roman town,” said Professor Michael Fulford, director of the Silchester Town Life Project.

“The discovery of the underlying Iron Age settlement is extremely exciting. While there are traces of settlement beneath Roman Verulamium (today’s St Albans) and Canterbury and close to the site of Roman Colchester, none of these resembles the evidence that we have here at Calleva of a planned town,” he said.

“The completely new street grid implemented later by the Romans could have been a thumbs down on the British arrangement,” he added.

According to Professor Fulford, “We now have evidence that the town was burnt down sometime after AD 50 and before AD 80.”

“The possibility that this was at the hands of Boudicca when leading the largest British uprising during the Roman occupation is hugely significant. It was not thought the revolt passed this way,” he said.

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Pic: Discovery On

The website Discovery On tells us: An oak barrel, full of butter, estimated to be roughly 3,000 years old has been found in Gilltown bog, between Timahoe and Staplestown in Ireland The amazing discovery of the barrel, which is being described by archaeology experts in the National Museum as a "really fine example" was found by two Bord na Mona workers. The pair, John Fitzharris and Martin Lane, were harrowing the bog one day in late May when they noticed a distinctive white streak in the peat.

The two men put the barrel in the cab of their tractor and brought it back to their base.

"We put it in a black plastic bag," Mr Fitzharris explained.

And last Tuesday in the Conservation Department of the National Museum of Ireland in Collins Barracks, the two men were reunited with the barrel in the company of Monasterevin man and one of the museum’s keepers, Pádraig Clancy and conservator Carol Smith.

Mr Clancy was contacted by Bord na Móna’s archaeological liaison officer who reports to the museum on finds like this. He travelled to the site and took the barrel to Collins Barracks.

"It’s rare to find a barrel as intact as that," Mr. Clancy explained, "especially with the lid intact, and attached. It’s a really fine example."

He estimates that the barrel is approximately 3,000 years old, from the Iron Age.

At the moment it is being dried out by staff at the Conservation Department. Once dry it will be soaked in a wax-like solution which preserves it.

"At 35ks, it’s a pretty big one," Ms. Smith explained. Other examples of bog butter they showed tended to be less intact and much smaller.

It is thought that the butter was put in the bog for practical reasons, rather than ritual.

"There are accounts dating back to the 1850′s with people used to wash their cattle once a year in the bog and then put some butter back into the bog. It was piseogary," Mr. Clancy explained, adding that the butter was usually "stolen by the following week!

"It’s open to interpretation, but we’re inclined to think that 3,000 years ago they were just storing it."

Such a large amount of butter, he estimated would have probably been the harvest of a community rather than an individual farmer.
Ms. Smith and Mr. Clancy explained that bog butter has been tasted before, "but not by us!

"It’s a national treasure, you can’t be going hacking bits of it off for your toast!" Ms. Smith joked.

"It’s important to say that we have a good relationship with Bord na Mona," Mr. Clancy explained. "They are one of the better organisations for reporting finds."

And the bogs of Kildare have yielded quite a lot of artefacts from the past, including spear heads, pottery and bodies.

"We’ve found no body parts in Gilltown bog," Ms. Smith said, before adding, "but here’s hoping!"

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Pic: Neatorama

A team of forensic scientists at the University of Copenhagen has studied human remains found in two ancient Danish burial grounds dating back to the iron age, and discovered a man who appears to be of Arabian origin reported Science Daily back in 2008. The findings suggest that human beings were as genetically diverse 2000 years ago as they are today and indicate greater mobility among iron age populations than was previously thought. The findings also suggest that people in the Danish iron age did not live and die in small, isolated villages but, on the contrary, were in constant contact with the wider world.

On the southern part of the island of Zealand in Denmark, lie two burial grounds known as Bøgebjerggård and Skovgaarde, which date back to the Danish iron age (c. 0-400 BC). Linea Melchior and forensic scientists from the University of Copenhagen analysed the mitocondrial DNA of 18 individuals buried on the sites and found that there was as much genetic variation in their remains as one would expect to find in individuals of the present day. The research team also found DNA from a man, whose genetic characteristics indicate a man of Arabian origin.

Archeologists and anthropologists know today that the concept of a single scandinavian genetic type, a scandinavian race that wandered to Denmark, settled there, and otherwise lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world, is a fallacy.

If you look at the geographic position of Denmark, then it becomes clear that the Danes must have been in contact with other peoples.

says scientist, Linea Melchior.

We know from other archeological excavations that there was a good deal of trade and exchange of goods between Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia and Europe. These lines of communication must have extended further south as one of the Danish burial grounds, which dates back to the iron age also contained the remains of a man, who appears to have been of arabian origin.

At the beginning of the Danish iron age, the roman legions were based as far north as the river Elbe (on the border of northern Germany) and it is thought that the man of arabian descent found in the burial grounds in Southern Zealand would have either been a slave or a soldier in the roman army. It is probable that he possessed skills or special knowledge, which the people in Bøgebjerggård or Skovgaard settlements could make use of, or he could have been the descendant of a female of arabian origin, who for reasons unknown, had crossed the river Elbe and settled down with the inhabitants of Zealand.

This discovery is comparable to the findings of a colleague of mine, who found a person of siberian origin on the Kongemarke site.

continues scientist, Linea Melchior. He was buried on consecrated ground, just as the circumstances of the arab man’s burial was identical to that of the locals. The discovery of the arab man indicates that people from distant parts of the world could be and were absorbed in Danish communities.

All of our ancestors, no matter when they arrived have contributed to our history and the development of our lifestyle.

explains Linea Melchior.

Indeed, Danish identity is more a definition of where one is physically located and lives today than a question of our past history – since we’re all originally african in origin. That we ended up in Europe was accidental, which is in itself remarkable.

Another interesting feature of the approximately 50 graves assessed so far on the two sites and also from other burial sites and time periods in Danish history is that none of the individuals seem to be maternally related to one another.

explains Linea Melchior.

We couldn’t see any large families buried in the same location. This suggests that in the Danish iron age, people didn’t live and die in the villages of their birth, as we had previously imagined.

The findings have been published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology 135:206-215 (2008) and PLoS One 3(5): e2214.

Read the original article complete with references at Science Daily.