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FULL TITLE: Sprawling Greek monuments built 4,500 years ago on 'the world's oldest maritime sanctuary' reveal the impressive engineering skills of Bronze Age islanders Excavations around Keros show the technological prowess of Bronze Age Greeks Researchers found the remains of terraced walls and giant gleaming structures The structures were built using 1,000 tons of stone dug up six miles away Together they turned a tiny islet near Keros into a single, massive monument A remote Greek island known as the 'world's oldest maritime sanctuary' was once covered in complex monuments built using stone dug up six miles (10 km) away....

A rocky islet and a nearby hillside have yielded evidence of one of Greece's oldest and most enigmatic ritual sites. Imported stones and fragmented marble statuettes show that Dhaskalio and Kavos were "a symbolic central place for the Early Bronze Age" in the Aegean, according to Professor Colin Renfrew. Kavos is a stony, scrub-covered slope on the Cycladic island of Keros. Forty-five years ago Professor Renfrew, then a PhD student at Cambridge, found extensive looting there, with fragments of marble bowls and the famous Cycladic folded-arm figurines scattered across the surface. The date of the Dhaskalio Kavos site, based on...

ATHENS, Greece - British and Greek archaeologists are preparing a major excavation on a tiny Greek island to try to explain why it produced history's largest collection of Cycladic flat-faced marble figurines. Artwork from barren Keros inspired such artists as Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore but also attracted ruthless looters. Now experts are seeking insight into the island's possible role as a major religious center of the enigmatic Cycladic civilization some 4,500 years ago. Excavations will run April through June. "Keros is one of the riddles of prehistoric archaeology," said Peggy Sotirakopoulou, curator of the Cycladic collection at the Museum...

Objects from a possible Roman shipwreck have been found off the coast of Kent in one of the most unusual archaeological finds in living memory. The chance discoveries were made by a kayaker in the sea off Ramsgate. The tide was low enough and the water clear enough for him to reach down and pull out beautiful cobalt blue glassware and high-status Roman pottery, called Samian ware. Mark Dunkley, a marine listing adviser with Historic England, said it was the sort of find which just did not happen in the UK. "It is the rarity of the material and the...

Hailed as one of the top archaeological finds of 2015, the discovery was made by a joint Greek-American archaeological expedition in the small Fourni archipelago with an area of just 17 square miles. This is a collection of 13 islands and islets located between the eastern Aegean islands of Samos and Icaria. "Surpassing all expectations, over only 13 days we added 12 percent to the total of known ancient shipwrecks in Greek territorial waters," Peter Campbell, of the University of Southampton and co-director from US based RPM Nautical Foundation, told Discovery News. Fourni lies right in the middle of the...

Thanks to decades of political isolation under the reign of paranoid Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania's coastline has long been off-limits to divers of all kinds. "Virtually nothing is known about the cultural resources in the waters off Albania," says Jeff Royal, archaeological director of the nonprofit RPM Nautical Foundation. Together with Adrian Anastasi of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology, Royal is now directing a survey of the area, one of the last unexplored coastlines of the Mediterranean world. Though only two years into the project, the team has already made numerous finds. "There are all kinds of sites down...

Encrusted with tiny shells and smelling strongly of the sea, a 2,400-year-old Greek jar lies in a saltwater bath in Durres Museum, on Albania's Adriatic coast. Part of a sunken shipment of up to 60 ceramic vessels, the 67-centimeter (26-inch) storage jar, or amphora, was the top find... Launched in July, the month-long survey was the first step in compiling an underwater cultural heritage map that could eventually plot the position of sunken fleets from ancient and mediaeval times believed to lie along Albania's 360-kilometer (220-mile) coastline... The light-brown clay amphora, probably used to store wine or oil, was found...

Naval archaeologists think they’ve found the only example of armor from Carthage to survive the destruction of the city-state by Rome in 146BC. The helmet, recovered from the site of the Battle of the Egadi Islands, northwest of Sicily, is dramatically different from the Celtic style worn across Europe, popularly known as a Roman helmet. It appears to have a nose guard, a broad brim protecting the back of the neck from ear to ear, and a high, narrow crest, said Dr Jeff Royal, director of archaeology at the RPM Nautical Foundation in Florida. Roman helmets, called montefortinos, are easily...

Highlights from the start of the 2019 field season! Follow us on board R/V Hercules as we go from Malta to Albania to Sicily. | June 2019 RPM Highlights Medium | RPM Nautical Foundation | Published on Jul 3, 2019

YONAGUNI, OKINAWA PREF. - A team of Japanese and Taiwanese paddlers in a dugout canoe on Tuesday successfully replicated a hypothetical human migration between Taiwan and Okinawa about 30,000 years ago. During the two-day, 200-kilometer voyage from Taitung County, southeastern Taiwan, to Yonaguni Island, Okinawa Prefecture, the team of five paddlers — one Taiwanese, three Japanese men and one Japanese woman — relied solely on the stars, sun and wind for their bearings. They departed Taiwan on Sunday afternoon in their 7.6-meter-long, 70-centimeter-wide wooden canoe, crossing the Black Stream, which begins off the Philippines and flows northeastward past Japan. The...

New insights into how people first arrived in Australia have been revealed by a group of experts brought together to investigate the continent's deep history. They used sophisticated modelling to determine not only the likely routes travelled by Aboriginal people tens of thousands of years ago, but also the sizes of groups required for the population to survive in harsh conditions. The research, published today in two companion papers (one in Scientific Reports and the other in Nature Ecology and Evolution), confirms the theory that people arrived in several large and deliberate migrations by island-hopping to reach New Guinea more...

Archaeologists have discovered the wreck of a Roman-era ship off the east coast of Cyprus. In a statement, Cyprus’ Department of Antiquities explained that the wreck is the first undisturbed Roman shipwreck found in the Mediterranean island nation’s waters. The ship is loaded with amphorae, or large ancient jars, which are likely from Syria and ancient Cilicia on modern-day Turkey's southeastern coast. Analysis of the shipwreck will shed new light on seaborne trade between Cyprus and the rest of the Roman provinces of the eastern Mediterranean, officials explained in the statement. The wreck was found near the resort town of...

Portus Romae was established in the middle of the first century AD and for well over 400 years was Rome's gateway to the Mediterranean... Lead author, Dr Tamsin O'Connell of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge said, "The human remains from the excavations at Portus belong to a local population involved in heavy, manual labour, perhaps the saccarii (porters) who unloaded cargoes from incoming ships. When looking isotopically at the individuals dating to between the early second to mid fifth centuries AD, we see that they have a fairly similar diet to the rich and middle-class people buried at...

Pytheas was a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great. He reached the Arctic Circle in his search for new sources of tin (essential for the making of bronze) and amber (usually sourced from the German coast) around 330 to 325 BC... As Pytheas continued his journey north along Britain's west coast he came across Ireland and rounded the tip of Scotland. At that point in his journey, he learned of an island situated further north at a distance of six days sailing which he refers to as "Thule" (most probably Iceland). Geminus of Rhodes (1st century BC) quoting directly...

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of what they believe could be an Bronze Age bathing site, or a sauna. The metre-deep pit with a channel to a nearby stream was discovered at Stronechrubie, Assynt, in the north west Highlands. The find was made by the Fire and Water Project, which is run by archaeology and history group Historic Assynt. The project team had been trying to understand what a crescent shaped mound of stones had been created for. Excavations at the mound by archaeologists and volunteers unearthed the pit and channel from beneath a layer of clay. Archaeologists believe it...

Pytheas visited the Isle of Man in 300BC - claim ANCIENT GREEK: The explorer Pytheas By ADRIAN DARBYSHIRE AN Ancient Greek explorer's extraordinary voyage took him to the Isle of Man 300 years before the birth of Christ, new research claims. Scientist and geographer Pytheas (pronounced Puth-e-as) is now believed to have visited the Island in about 325BC to take sun measurements during a three-year voyage – the first recorded circumnavigation of the British Isles. Pytheas was born in the Greek settlement of Massalia, now Marseille, about 360BC and was a contemporary of Alexander the Great (356-323BC). Marseille at that...

A devon archaeologist believes he has found the Lost City of Apollo.Dennis Price, who shot to prominence after finding a missing altar stone from Stonehenge, is the man behind what could be an amazing discovery. Mr Price, a father-of-two who lives in Broadclyst, has undertaken years of research on the stone circle. With the help of language experts from Exeter University, Mr Price has translated the early works of the Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, who was one of the earliest visitors to Britain, in around 325BC, and who wrote of the City of Apollo. Now, after dedicated work, Mr...

FURNESS DIG MAY HAVE FOUND ST PATRICK'S BIRTHPLACE Published on 12/07/2005 ARCHAEOLOGISTS believe they have found the birthplace of St Patrick. A dig in Urswick has uncovered a Roman fort which may be the Banna Vernta Berniae, thought by scholars to be where Ireland’s patron saint was born. Excavations are being led by Steve Dickinson, from Ulverston, who tutors archaeology at Lancaster University. Evidence of the Romans in Furness is rare. But Mr Dickinson is convinced the finds at Urswick are Roman with their typical layout of foundations and ditches. Mr Dickinson said: “I can’t tell you how important it...

Divers surprised by iron age port Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent Tuesday September 17, 2002 The Guardian Archaeologists diving deep beneath the ferries and yachts criss-crossing Poole harbour have found startling evidence of the oldest working harbour in Britain, built centuries before the Roman invasion. Timber pilings excavated from a deep layer of silt on the sea bed have been radio-carbon dated at 250BC, the oldest substantial port structures by several centuries anywhere on the British coast. They suggest an iron age trading complex, with massive stone and timber jetties reaching out into the deep water channel, providing berths...

Viking Cats – DNA Study Shows the Crucial Role Felines Played in Viking Life Apr 12, 2019 Reginald Martyr After conducting extensive research, scientists believe that they have stumbled upon an interesting revelation concerning the history of cats, a species which is among the world’s most popular pets today. New findings suggest that eons before cats became household pets across the globe, they were the frequent companions of ancient Vikings, in some cases accompanying them as they sailed across the globe. The first-ever major examination and analysis of ancient DNA from our feline friends provided these rather unexpected preliminary conclusions...