A rare collection of Islamic medical manuscripts has gone on display for the first time, illuminating medical traditions that developed in the Golden Age of Islamic culture, between the 9th and 17th centuries AD. Based at the Royal College of Physicians in London, and curated by Professor Peter E Pormann from The University of Manchester, The mirror [...]
The Mirror of Health: Discovering Medicine in the Golden Age of Islam
May 13, 2013
Filed Under: News, Exhibition, Middle East
Belgammel Ram reveals all
Detailed analysis of a 2,000-year-old bronze warship ram has shed new light on how the object was created and used. Discovered by British divers off the coast of Tobruk, Libya, in 1964, the Belgammel Ram weighs 20kg (44lb) and would have been part of a small Greek or Roman warship called a tesseraria. The 65cm (2’2″) [...]
Cannibalism at Jamestown colony
Ongoing excavations at Jamestown, VA, the first permanent English settlement in America, have revealed grisly evidence that within months of establishing the outpost, its desperate inhabitants had resorted to dismembering and eating a child. Contemporary written sources from Jamestown refer to the winter of 1609-1610 as the ‘Starving Time’, a devastating period when around 80% [...]
Grave discovery: first intact Neolithic burial chamber north of the Alps
May 1, 2013
Filed Under: News, Europe, Switzerland, Switzerland
Excavations in Switzerland have revealed the first intact Neolithic burial chamber north of the Alps. The dolmen, at Oberbipp in the Canton of Bern, contains the remains of at least 28 individuals dating to about 5,000 years ago. Marianne Ramstein, director of excavations, explained that examples of such burial chambers are rare, most are in [...]
Salmon cooking in the Jomon
Analysis of some of the world’s earliest pots has revealed that Ice Age hunter-gatherers enjoyed a fish supper. An international team of researchers, led by the University of York, examined charred food residues inside 101 pots made by the Jomon hunter-gatherer culture of Japan. Dating back up to 15,000 years, they represent the earliest direct [...]
Oetzi the Iceman had bad teeth
April 26, 2013
Filed Under: News
New research on the remains of ‘Oetzi’, the world’s oldest wet mummy, has revealed that his violent death was not the only misfortune suffered by the Iceman – he also had terrible teeth. According to a study led by researchers from the University of Zurich’s Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, Oetzi’s gritty diet had wreaked havoc [...]
1950s time capsule found at Cold War reactor
Environmental workers have made an unexpected discovery while preparing a building on the site of Hanford’s Cold War-era nuclear reactor in Washington for demolition: a time capsule from the 1950s. In a building close to the site’s D reactor – a relic of the Manhattan Project, involved in the development of the Atomic bomb – the team [...]
Temple and Tomb: prehistoric Malta, 3600-2500 BC
April 24, 2013
Filed Under: News, Exhibition, Malta
First settled in the late 6th millennium BC, between 3600-2500 BC the Maltese archipelago flourished into an astonishingly rich prehistoric culture, producing a wealth of stylised human figures unparalleled by contemporary peoples, as well as the oldest surviving free-standing stone buildings in the world. Constructed from massive slabs of limestone some 4m high, weighing up [...]
Toeing the line: the world’s oldest prosthetics?
Given the importance that the Ancient Egyptians placed on entering the afterlife intact, it is unsurprising that replacement body parts have been found in tombs. Whether these were used in life, or had a purely cosmetic purpose, has long been the subject of debate, however. Now an experimental archaeology project at the University of Manchester’s [...]
Israel’s church-shaped lantern: shedding light on the past
Archaeological work ahead of the construction of an events garden at Hamei Yoav, Israel, has uncovered an unusual church-shaped lantern, as well as a 1,500-year-old wine press. The rare artefact, comprising a ceramic model of a church decorated with cross-shaped ‘windows’ and a sloping roof, was found by the Israel Antiquities Authority during the investigation of [...]
Doing up Pompeii
The EU have launched a £36.1m project to help conserve the spectacular Roman ruins at Pompeii. Approved by the European Commission in 2012, the funding aims to consolidate ancient structures, improve drainage, and assist the training of staff. Special measures will also be taken to protect the initiative from the influence of organised crime – [...]
Back in fashion
Egyptian blue, the world’s oldest artificial pigment, could have a range of modern uses from medical imaging devices to remote controls for televisions. First produced 5,000 years ago by the ancient Egyptians, the pigment was used to decorate tombs, sculptures, furnishings, and jewellery until the 4th century AD. Now, chemical analysis led by Tina Salguero [...]
Cultivating disease
The development of farming by our Neolithic ancestors had a negative impact on the health of modern humans, archaeologists say. Researchers from the Universities of Adelaide and Aberdeen, and the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, extracted DNA from calcified dental plaque on ancient teeth from 34 northern European prehistoric skeletons. Their analysis, published in Nature Review, [...]
Ancient Lifestyle Choices
Hardening of the arteries is commonly associated with the modern sedentary lifestyle, but it affected people across the ancient world, over a period of 4,000 years, newly-published research says. Full-body CT scans of 137 adult mummies from ancient Egypt, Peru, southwest America (Ancestral Puebloans of the Archaic and Basketmaker II cultures), and the Aleutian Islands [...]
Richard III rediscovered
Human remains found beneath a Leicester carpark are those of Richard III, England’s last Medieval monarch, a multi-disciplinary team of experts have announced.
Unusual offerings
Over 130 human skulls, thought to be the remains of human sacrifices, have been discovered in a remote Mexican field, far from known ritual centres. Dated to c.AD 660-869, they were found during excavations led by Christopher Morehart of Georgia State University, who was investigating ancient agricultural practices near Lake Xaltocan. The skulls, all adult [...]
Toothy Roman Tumour
Archaeologists examining the 1,600 year-old remains of a woman from Roman Spain have made a unique – if grisly – discovery: a calcified ovarian tumour containing four teeth and a piece of bone. Known as a ‘teratoma’, the spherical mass measured 4.3cm (1.7in) in diameter and was found in the right-hand part of the 30-40 [...]
Reconstructing the Lion Man
Archaeologists returning to the spot where the enigmatic ‘Lion Man’ was found 74 years ago have announced the discovery of almost 1,000 new fragments of the mammoth ivory figure – and new dating evidence that could put it among the oldest figurative sculptures in the world. The first pieces of the Palaeolithic statue were excavated [...]
No Neanderthal Neighbours?
Neanderthals might have died out 15,000 years earlier than previously thought, meaning that they could not have interacted or interbred with modern humans, new analysis suggests. For 20 years it had been thought that pockets of Neanderthals survived in southern Iberia until c.36,000 years ago. As Homo sapiens arrived in the northern part of the [...]
Not Slow Progress
Prehistoric snail shells contain a wealth of information about what the climate was like thousands of years ago, newly-published research says. Chemical analysis led by Dr André Carlo Colonese, Dept of Archaeology, University of York, examined the carbon and oxygen isotope composition of the shells of Pomatias elegans, recovered from Mediterranean caves and ranging in [...]
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