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Interesting item from the Times of India:Coins are not only used as a mode of exchange but they also reflect heritage. Indian-Roman relations was one such area where coins played a major role in establishing and strengthening ties between two countries.At a special exhibition on Roman coins and other Roman antiquities found in South India, inaugurated by the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre director Angela Trezza at the Government Museum in Egmore on Tuesday, rare coins and antiquities were put on display for the public...Historically, trade between ancient Rome and India can be traced to the rule of Roman emperor Augustus...

Fire has damaged Easter Island's iconic megalith statues known as moai. An unknown number of the nearly 1,000 stone-carved statues were affected. Ariki Tepano, director of the Ma'u Henua community in charge of management and maintenance at the UNESCO heritage site Rapa Nui Natural Park, said the damage is "irreparable and with consequences beyond what your eyes can see." "The moai are totally charred and you can see the effect of the fire upon them," Tepano said in a social media post. The city of Rapa Nui said in the post that the site is closed to visitors while investigations...

Java Man's First Tools Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA About 1.7 million years ago, a leggy human ancestor, Homo erectus, began prowling the steamy swamps and uplands of Java. That much is known from the bones of more than 100 individuals dug up on the Indonesian island since 1891. But the culture of early "Java Man" has been a mystery: No artifacts older than 1 million years had been found--until now. At the meeting, archaeologist Harry Widianto of the National Research Centre of Archaeology in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, wowed colleagues with slides showing stone tools found...

Divers unveil exquisite treasure pulled from depths of Java Sea Wed Oct 26,12:01 AM ET JAKARTA (AFP) - In a nondescript warehouse in Jakarta, treasure-hunter Luc Heymans dips into plastic boxes and pulls out jewels and ornaments that lay hidden at the bottom of the Java Sea for 1,000 years. An ornately sculpted mirror of polished bronze is one masterpiece among the 250,000 artefacts recovered over the last 18 months from a boat that sank off Indonesia's shores in the 10th century. On a small mould is written the word "Allah" in beautiful Arabic script, on top of a lid...

Abstract: The Indian coast, with a long history of maritime activities, has been dotted with several ancient ports. The evidence for this exists in port-related structures on the shore and in relics lying in the sea adjacent. Marine archaeological explorations have revealed the existence of jetties at Dwarka, Rupen Bandar and Porbandar, and offshore anchoring points at Bet Dwarka, Miyani, Visawada and Somnath on the Gujarat coast. The preferred anchoring points fall in a water depth of 5–7 m. This communication also discusses the effect of tide when using jetties and loading points along various parts of the west coast...

Located in the eastern province of Van in Turkey, the falling water level of Lake Van, with the decrease in precipitation and excessive evaporation caused by the increase in temperature, revealed the 11-step harbor at the bottom of the Urartu period castle...Due to the decrease in the lake level, the 11-step port of that period became visible in the coastal part of the castle, which was used by the Urartians for sea transportation, in the district where many structures and boats previously emerged.Experts examined the area, which was opened in the bedrock with a width of 3 meters and which...

Archaeologists have described the discovery of a 2,000-year-old anchor on the seabed off Suffolk as an "incredibly rare" underwater find.The distinctive wrought iron anchor was found 140 feet down in the southern North Sea during survey works for ScottishPower Renewables’ £2.5billion East Anglia ONE offshore windfarm.Experts believe the anchor is a rare example from the Roman or possibly late Iron Age – somewhere between 1,600-2,000 years old – and is evidence of Romans' seafaring and trading off the coast of the East of England.Brandon Mason from Maritime Archaeology Ltd said: “Everything points to this being a Roman anchor of almost...

Whetstones are one of the most common finds from the Viking Age. What looks like a simple stone however, tells the tale of extensive trading systems - and perhaps even the reason for why the Vikings started raiding overseas.At the end of the 19th century, people emptied the water out of an old quarry in Trøndelag in mid-Norway. Some thought that it might contain a large silver deposit.But the only thing they found were lots of stones. A totally commonplace object...The ordinary stones were whetstones, also known as sharpening stones. They were used to, as the latter name suggests, sharpen...

Almost three hundred years after the Romans left, scholars like Bede wrote about the Angles and the Saxons and their migrations to the British Isles. Scholars of many disciplines, including archaeology, history, linguists and genetics, have debated what his words might have described, and what the scale, the nature and the impact of human migration were at that time.New genetic results now show that around 75 percent of the population in Eastern and Southern England was made up of migrant families whose ancestors must have originated from continental regions bordering the North Sea, including the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. What...

The researchers were conducting a study of an ancient harbour as part of the "Istrian Undersea" project, an initiative to document and list the underwater sites off the Croatian coast.Barbariga is located on the Barbariga Peninsula, which used to be called Punta Cissana for the legendary ancient city of Cissa. During antiquity, the region was a centre for the production of olive oil, a commodity which was exported throughout the northern Adriatic.Previous studies of the Roman harbour places it in the 1st century AD, which likely functioned as an extension of an olive oil mill in the Barbariga locality for...

...At Dyrrhachium in what is now Albania, Caesar attacked Pompey's supply base on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Because of the vagaries of the wind, Caesar sent supply ships to several destinations across the Mediterranean Sea to ensure his own troops could be fed and outfitted in the coming campaign...An Israeli researcher... studied wind patterns and ancient texts about the weather. And then he did something more unusual. He and a team of experts built a replica of a 5th century B.C. boat and sailed it across part of the Mediterranean to test his theory...In addition, by examining Roman...

The silent ceramic objects that survive from medieval Indian Ocean trade carry incredible stories of a time when South Asia had the upper hand over China...In the 830s CE, a ship tried to make a daring crossing. Navigating treacherous reefs and shoals, it was attempting to move from the South China Sea to the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. After a brief stop there, it intended to catch the monsoon winds to India. This attempt failed, and the ship’s contents — ranging from marvellously carved golden plates to glazed ceramics, from a diplomat’s ink-stone to a small toy dog...

Exchange of knowledge and expertise, bartering and wooing. Kirkhellaren Cave on Sanna in Træna is one of Norway’s oldest meeting places, having first been used about 10,000 years ago.So far west out at sea that witty people claim that the gulls here speak English, it is midsummer on the Arctic Circle and we are on the island of Sanna in Træna Municipality.A 10 to 15-minute walk from the quay we find Kirkhellaren, a very famous cave where, throughout repeated ice ages, the frost and sea have carved out a cathedral in a crack of the mountainside...The first archaeological excavations in...

4000 Year Old Boat Salvaged Near The Ancient City Of Uruk An ancient boat, made of bitumen and not preserved organic material, was excavated during the spring 2022 campaign of the Iraqi German Mission of the State Board of Antiquities and the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute, digitally documented in three dimensions and completely recovered for further rescue and preservation. Near Uruk, in the archaeological buffer zone, ancient canals, fields and small settlements as well as production sites that illustrate the rich life of the ancient city are located. The boat was found there during the systematic documentation...

3,500 years ago, the island underwent a period of significant cultural transformations, namely the adoption of a new language and economic system, and major changes in burial customs and attire.Around the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion...Rather than looking at things like burial, art, or dress, practices that tend to shift with fashion, archaeologists have begun to look more closely at more mundane, everyday practices as a better insight...

The discovery of the three bodies on Indonesia's Alor Island, dating from 7,500 to 12,000 years ago, sheds new light on burial practices and migration through the area... Dr. Sofia Samper Carro said the three burials are significant because the positioning of each body shows a different mortuary practice. Dr. Samper Carro said this might relate to multiple migratory routes through the area from thousands of years ago...The mere process of finding and uncovering the bodies saw Dr. Samper Carro and her team uncover more than 250 bones, including the three bodies, which were in a seated, flexed (on side)...

The Vikings opened trade routes, founded cities, created new feats of engineering and captured ancient hubs. This complete series chronicles the incredible rise and fall of the Vikings, revealing new discoveries that turn Viking history on its head. We tell their incredible history with the help of the foremost experts on Viking warfare and way of life.

...The new research was published in the journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday, August 17, wherein researchers found evidence of human Y chromosome sequences from an unidentified group in South America.The findings reportedly bring promising results that can potentially solve the mystery behind the missing genetic link of the human migration into South America.In recent years, multiple studies have continued to conduct the genetic mapping of human migration since our ancient ancestors left the continent of Africa around 60,000 years ago. From there, our predecessors expanded their presence and settlements across the six continents of the world...Amongst these research, three studies...

Archaeologists from the Norwegian Maritime Museum have found the remains of a beautiful wooden ship in Bjørvika, in Oslo, Norway. According to archaeologists, the find is rare.“It is very special. We don’t know if it is Norwegian yet; it could come from Poland or Germany,” archaeologist Sarah Fawsitt of the Norwegian Maritime Museum stated in a press release.The Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) is also participating in the excavation of the ship.For almost 20 years, excavations have been going on in Bjørvika, and more than 50 boat remains have been discovered, Fawsitt added.Traditional boatbuilding methodThe boat is clinker-built...

Archaeologists in Seydisfjordur have excavated jewelry that dates from 940 – 1100, just after the initial settlement of Iceland. Notably, one of the beads found in the excavation even bears the colours of the Icelandic national flag.Archaeological digs have been underway in Seydisfjordur, a fishing village in the East Fjords of Iceland, since 2020. Due to the high slopes of the valley, Seydisfjordur is subject to land slides, and local authorities plan to build defensive barriers to protect the village, which has suffered damage in recent years. However, these same land slides have also preserved archaeological sites in the region...