Free Republic

Phys.org reports that a pair of rare copper-alloy Bronze Age cymbals were uncovered at a site in Oman. The instrument has highlighted a shared musical connection between ancient cultures on both sides of the Arabian Gulf. “These cymbals are the first of their kind to have been found in good archaeological contexts in Oman and are from a particularly early context that questions some of the assumptions on their origin and development," said archaeologist Khaled Douglas. When the objects were first recovered from a third-millennium b.c. Umm an-Nar culture site in Dahwa, experts recognized their similarity to examples that had...

Only around 5% of the world’s population have hazel eyes. Yet a 2009 study found that 55.2% of their Spanish cohort had hazel-green eyes. This eye color is also more common in Portugal than the global average. But why is there such a concentration of hazel eyes in the Iberian peninsula compared to most other parts of the world? And is the evolution of hazel eyes connected to the genetic history of Iberia? Now there are a two main types of hazel eyes. Iberian DNA and the Evolution of Hazel Eyes... | 15:00 Celtic History Decoded | 48.5K subscribers |...

Hundreds of years ago, Cistercian monks in France protected their treasured literary works with covers made from exotic animal skins, Science News reports. Clairvaux Abbey was founded in 1115 and its literary collection today contains over 1,000 medieval books. Most of these were wrapped with deer, sheep, or boar skin, but ancient DNA analysis of several perplexing furry volumes from the twelfth and thirteenth century revealed that they had been covered with seal hides. "I was like, 'that's not possible. There must be a mistake,'" said researcher Élodie Lévêque. "Seals didn't frequent France's northern coast at the time. I sent...

According to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, researchers have found evidence that hunter-gatherers from mainland Europe traveled to Malta around 1,000 years earlier than previously believed. Archaeologists recovered stone tools, hearths, and food waste at a cave site in Latnija that indicated humans have been living on the island for 8,500 years. This means that they arrived there even before the widespread adoption of agriculture, which contradicts long-held assumptions. Experts theorize that they made the journey in simple dugout canoes, making this new discovery the oldest evidence of long-distance seafaring in the Mediterranean prior to...

What if the Romans had potatoes? This video ponders the historical implications. Could Potatoes have Saved the Roman Empire? | 9:27 toldinstone | 558K subscribers | 34,106 views | April 1, 20250:00 Introduction0:34 The Columbian Exchange1:00 Potatoes in modern Europe2:24 What if...2:49 AG14:08 Potatoes in Rome4:50 Population growth5:34 Potato belt economics6:38 Potential pitfalls7:23 Spuds and duds

Vietnamnet Global reports that two ancient boats were unearthed at the bottom of a fishpond in the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Ninh. The find was investigated by a collaborative team from the Bac Ninh Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the Institute of Archaeology. The remarkably preserved vessels are both around 50 feet long. Although they are positioned about six feet apart, the presence of a wooden beam connecting their bows suggests that the two boats once functioned as a single unit. Their findspot is located on the Dau River, a tributary of the Thien Duc-Dong River, which...

According to a Live Science report, European hunter-gatherers traversed the Mediterranean Sea in primitive boats and visited North Africa much earlier than previously thought. A new study sequenced the DNA from nine individuals who lived in modern-day Algeria and Tunisia between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. The surprising results revealed that some of them may have been descended from Mesolithic Europeans. The genome of one particular man buried at the site of Djebba in Tunisia indicated that at least six percent of his DNA could be traced back to European hunter-gatherers. These results suggest that the individual's local ancestors mixed...

Portus Abonae, also known as Abona, was a bustling Roman port and settlement located at the junction of the rivers Avon and Trym in what is now Sea Mills, Bristol, England. Founded as early as the 3rd century AD, this port played a crucial role in the Roman Empire's maritime trade network. Portus Abonae, Roman Britain, c. AD 250 - 450 | 6:07 AncientSwan | 23.9K subscribers | 2,021 views | October 22, 2024

Christopher Nolan’s latest epic production, ”The Odyssey”, brought Hollywood star Matt Damon to Greece. Filming is underway for the highly anticipated adaptation of Homer’s legendary epic poem in Greece with the production already working hard for the much-anticipated film. With a star-covered cast and a whopping $250 million production budget, this ambitious cinematic project is expected to be one of the most talked-about films of recent years. Matt Damon in Greece to begin filming Matt Damon, who will star in the new film as Odysseus, arrived in Greece a few days ago to film key scenes for the new film...

According to a statement released by Ateneo de Manila University, new research suggests that prehistoric people living in the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia may have had the capability of building sophisticated seafaring boats far earlier than expected. The study challenges the widely held contention that advances in boatbuilding technology during the Paleolithic era only took place in Europe and Africa. The researchers argue that places such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste were never connected to the mainland during this period, yet somehow contain evidence of human occupation. Analysis of 40,000-year-old stone tools excavated at sites across these regions...

"Fig seeds dating to as far back as the 13th century have been recovered from excavations of medieval Dublin, Cork and other towns," said Associate Professor Meriel McClatchie, Director of the UCD Ancient Foods research group at UCD School of Archaeology."An actual fruit has never been found in Ireland until now, but what is most important about the Drumanagh fig is its antiquity. It is without parallel in Ireland and is by far the oldest example of an exotic fruit found here."...The establishment of extensive trading routes within the Empire allowed Roman cuisine to become widely available, including new herbs...

Asmall site on the rocky island of Tavolara off the coast of Sardinia may reveal a robust trading relationship between two Iron Age cultures. In the ninth century B.C., the Nuragic people of the main island of Sardinia exchanged ceramic and metal artifacts with the Villanovans, early Etruscans who inhabited central Italy. Although brooches and other Villanovan metal objects have been unearthed occasionally on Sardinia, evidence of exchange between the cultures has come primarily from Nuragic artifacts found in the tombs of high-status Villanovans in northern Etruria. As a result, scholars think that the Nuragic people and Villanovans mostly interacted...

For the first time, analyses determine that some present-day Kenyans who identify as Swahili are genetically very different from medieval residents of the same region, while others have retained substantial medieval ancestry...The researchers found that the initial waves of newcomers were mainly from Persia. These findings align with the oldest Swahili oral stories, which tell of Persian (Shirazi) merchants or princes arriving on the Swahili shores."It was exciting to find biological evidence that Swahili oral history probably depicts Swahili genetic ancestry as well as cultural legacy," said Esther Brielle, research fellow in genetics in the Reich lab.Brielle is co-first author...

This video explores the famous "grain dole" of ancient Rome. As we'll see, the dole was only one part of a centuries-long program to subsidize the price of bread in the ancient world's largest city. Chapters:0:00 Introduction 1:12 Grain, glorious grain 2:14 Taxes and transport 3:22 The voyage to Rome 4:33 Raycon 5:40 The grain dole 7:11 Millers and bakers 7:40 State subsidies 8:38 Imperial ideology 9:29 LegaciesThe Welfare Program that Fed a Million Romans | 11:09toldinstone | 541K subscribers | 26,830 views | February 7, 2025

The Guardian reports that a hoard of ancient coins was discovered by a pair of metal detectorists in the Netherlands, in an area where Roman troops returning from Britain may have landed. The coins were placed in a cloth or leather pouch and deposited in a shallow pit in a swampy area. The hoard is made up of 44 gold staters bearing the name of the Celtic king Cunobelin, who ruled in southeastern Britain from A.D. 5 to 40. The hoard also contains some 360 Roman coins, including 72 gold aurei, and 288 silver denarii dated to between 200 B.C....

Ancient texts speak of a strange and valuable metal known as orichalcum. The mystical material was often dismissed as a fantastical invention – until they discovered a large cache of the stuff in the Mediterranean Sea. Orichalcum’s name is derived from the Greek for "mountain copper.” One of its most prominent mentions comes in the legend of Atlantis by Plato, in which it is described as “more precious [...] than anything except gold.” The dialogue, called Critias, explains how the mythical citadel of Atlantis was adorned with walls, pillars, and floors that were coated in orichalcum, endowing the building with...

The famous Sutton Hoo burial site may have also included graves of soldiers recruited by a foreign army, new research has revealed.Helen Gittos, 50, an associate professor of early medieval history at the University of Oxford, has released a new research paper into the Anglo Saxon wonder near Woodbridge in Suffolk.She has put forward a theory that those buried at Sutton Hoo could have been recruited by the Byzantine Army in the eastern Mediterranean in 575 AD, based on items found during excavations...During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr Gittos examined distribution maps of copper items that travelled from the eastern Mediterranean...

...there are still many in academia who claim that changes to the climate and the outbreak of plague were catastrophic for the eastern Roman Empire... Our findings reveal that there was no decline in the 6th century, but rather a new record in population and trade in the eastern Mediterranean...Previous research claimed that this site declined in the middle of the 6th century... The decline only started in the 7th century.Large-scale data included new databases compiled using archaeological survey, excavation and shipwreck finds. The survey and excavation databases, which were made up of tens of thousands of sites, were used...

Marine archaeologist Alexandre Monteiro has said that the coast of Portugal between the Azores and Madeira islands holds golden treasure-laden shipwrecks. This region is said to contain close to 8,620 ships, and 250 of them are said to hold a significant amount of gold treasure. Monteiro is an investigator who works with Nova University in Lisbon and has built a database that records shipwrecks dating back to the XVI century when historical records become more easily accessible. In an interview with a local outlet, Lusa, Monteiro claims to have documented more than 7,500 shipwrecks off Portugal’s continental coast, 1000 near...