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The medieval trading center of Rungholt, which is today located in the UNESCO Wadden Sea World Heritage Site and currently the focus of interdisciplinary research, drowned in a storm surge in 1362...Well known for its mythically exaggerated destruction and an archaeological find situation unique in Europe, Rungholt is a prominent example of the effects of massive human intervention in the northern German coastal region that continue to this day.The key to the success of the work lies in a close interdisciplinary collaboration...And Dr. Hanna Hadler from the Institute of Geography at Mainz University, added, "Based on this prospection, we selectively...

Recently we have studied the unusual optical properties of the Veil of Manoppello, a canvas representing the face of Jesus Christ … with that visible on the Turin Shroud. In particular, the paper focuses on assessing whether the two images can be superimposed, i.e., whether they are different images of the same face. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that the Veil of Manoppello and the Turin Shroud show different images of the same face. We demonstrate that the face of the Turin Shroud, after a logarithmic transformation of the intensity and the correction of the background noise, shows cheeks’ profiles,...

One of the latest discoveries in the world of biblical research comes as a result of ultraviolet light technology that allowed researchers to see and translate a portion of scripture written nearly 1,500 years ago.Historian Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences published his work at Cambridge and explained how the new technology has provided more insight into the preservation of scripture:Kissel said that they found an ancient version of Chapter 12 in the book of Matthew in the Bible that had been hidden beneath a section of text for over 1,500 years. His discovering is one of the...

The Codex Sassoon, believed to date from the late 9th or early 10th century, was bought at Sotheby’s by the American Friends of the ANU — Museum of the Jewish People.The oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible sold at Sotheby’s for $38.1 million on Wednesday, one of the highest prices for a book or historical document ever sold at auction.The volume, known as the Codex Sassoon, includes all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, minus about eight leaves, including the first 10 chapters of Genesis. Researchers have dated it to the late ninth or early 10th century, making it the oldest near-complete...

Excavations were conducted by Cotswold Archaeology in preparation for a housing development by Taylor Wimpey at Bidwell West, located next to Houghton Regis and Dunstable.The team found a medieval timber-framed building and a series of medieval enclosure ditches, in addition to the tableman which was made from a cattle mandible.Tablemen were used to play various board games, where two players would typically roll dice and move their pieces across rows of markings. The word ‘tables’ is derived from the Latin tabula which primarily meant “board” or “plank” and was first introduced to Britain during the Roman period.One of the more...

...When on December 20th German foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock headed a large delegation to Abuja, she handed over a second small batch of the 1,130 pieces her country's five leading museums gifted to Nigeria in 2022... Little did she (one hopes) or the German public suspect what Buhari and the NCMM would do, just three months later. Gifting the restitutions to the Oba, who is bound to no enforceable curatorial standards, is controversial in the West; not least because of the campaign by black Americans who descend from slaves, and who demand that the artworks stay safe in the museums...

Extracts taken from Anonymus and Master Roger The Deeds of the Hungarians/Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament upon the Destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tatars edited by Martyn C. Rady, Laszlo Veszpremy, Janos M. Bak Central European University Press, 1 January 2010

Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn."A hoard like this is very rare," Lars Christian Norbach, the director of the North Jutland Museum, where the artefacts will go on display, told Agence France-Presse.The silver coins were found about 5 miles (8km) from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro. From their inscriptions, they are believed...

A trio of archaeologists from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina, the French National Center for Scientific Research and the Institute of Research for Development, France, has found more than 100 pre-Hispanic religious sites that they believe are linked to ancient Andean cults in Bolivia. In their paper published in the journal Antiquity, Pablo Cruz, Richard Joffre and Jean Vacher, describe the sites they found and highlight one in particular that stood out from the rest.In this new effort, the researchers were studying hilltops in the Carangas region of Highland Bolivia, which was once home to pre-Hispanic people....

His study found noticeable differences in how the Matthew chapters were translated.The Biblical text under UV light. Photo: Vatican Library. A medieval scholar has discovered one of the earliest translations of the Gospels using UV light. Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences found the translation, which is written in Old Syriac and dates back 1,750 years, beneath three layers of text (Syriac, Greek, and Georgian) in a manuscript that has been in the Vatican Library since the mid-20th century. Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic that emerged during the 1st century. The text is believed to be a...

Vikings occupied Greenland from roughly 985 to 1450, farming and building communities before abandoning their settlements and mysteriously vanishing. Why they disappeared has long been a puzzle, but a new paper from the Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) determines that one factor—rising sea level—likely played a major role...The departure of these Viking settlers coincided with the beginning of the period known as the Little Ice Age, which had a particular impact on the North Atlantic. But while cooling and freezing might seem likely to lower sea levels, a variety of factors combined to have the opposite...

Archaeologists have used wood taxa analysis to distinguish between imported, drift and native wood from five Norse farmsteads on Greenland.Historical records have long suggested that medieval Norse colonists on Greenland (AD 985–1450) relied on imported material such as iron and wood. Until now, it has not been fully recognized where these imports of wood came from...All sites were occupied between AD 1000 and 1400 and dated by radiocarbon dating and associated artifact types.A microscopic examination of the cellular structure of the wood previously found by archaeologists on these sites enabled the identification of tree genus or species, and the results...

Researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) have discovered a small manuscript fragment of the Syriac translation of the New Testament, which is one of the oldest textual witnesses of the Gospels. The fragment was produced in the 3rd century and copied in the 6th century. The discovery of the fragment is an important piece of the puzzle in New Testament history. Grigory Kessel, a medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, was able to identify the fragment with the help of ultraviolet photography. The fragment was found as the third layer of text, or double palimpsest, in the...

KHARTOUM — While excavating an archaeological site in the Old Dongola region of northern Sudan, Polish researchers discovered stone artifacts dating back to the Middle Ages including ancient murals inscribed with drawings and pictorial motifs of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the archangel Michael. The researchers described the discovery as unique and unexpected because the images were painted in an unusual way compared to other Christian archaeological discoveries in northern Sudan. The Polish archeologists said the unique archaeological discovery has great artistic and historical significance for the Old Dongola region. They explained the murals have retained their natural colors and...

Ultra-violet light has revealed a hidden fragment of a Syriac Christian New Testament translation dating back 1,750 years, according to a study published by the Journal Of New Testament Studies. Grigory Kessel, a medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, was able to decipher a lost fragment of the Gospels that had been written in Syriac text 1,750 years ago. Because parchment was scarce in the Middle East at the time, manuscripts were often erased and reused. By using UV light on a 6th century manuscript, Kessel was able to uncover one of the earliest translations of the New Testament...

The Viking shields found on the Gokstad ship in 1880 were not strictly ceremonial and may have been used in hand-to-hand combat, according to a new analysis.Dozens of Viking round shields from a famous ship burial unearthed in Norway were not strictly ceremonial as long thought; instead they may have protected warriors in battle, a new study finds.A reanalysis of the wooden shields, which were unearthed in the Gokstad ship in southern Norway in 1880, suggests they may have once been covered with rawhide (untanned cattle skin) and used in hand-to-hand combat, according to a new study published on March...

Parchment was scarce in the desert in the Middle Ages, so manuscripts were often erased and reused.A medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) has now been able to make legible the lost words on this layered manuscript, a so-called palimpsest: Grigory Kessel discovered one of the earliest translations of the Gospels, made in the 3rd century and copied in the 6th century, on individual surviving pages of this manuscript. The findings are published in the journal New Testament Studies...The small manuscript fragment, which can now be considered as the fourth textual witness, was identified by Grigory Kessel using...

The Benin Bronzes Consist of Thousands of Metal Sculptures and Plaques Which Adorned the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Benin, Presently Located in Edo State, Nigeria...Although the collection is commonly referred to as the Benin Bronzes, the pieces are predominantly crafted from brass of varying compositions using the lost-wax casting method, a process by which a duplicate sculpture is cast from an original sculpture.Edo artisans used manillas, meaning bracelet, as a metal source for making the Benin Bronzes. Manillas were also used as decorative objects and currency across parts of Western Africa.In a new study published in the journal,...

Director Holly Teti explores “heterotopia” in an outdoor staging of the Scottish playAudience members lounged on picnic blankets or folding chairs as the action unfolded against the University Chapel, framed by falling flower petals, twisting tree branches and a slow, golden sunset.“Double, double, toil and trouble…” the University’s student-run theatre organization Shakespeare on the Lawn mounted a powerful production of “Macbeth” in Pavilion Garden I this weekend, bringing one of the Bard’s greatest tragedies to Grounds for a three-afternoon run. Audience members lounged on picnic blankets or folding chairs as the action unfolded against the University Chapel, framed by...

The royal warship Vasa is seen at the Vasamuseet museum in Stockholm on April 24, 2011. (Scanpix Sweden, Anders Wiklund/AP Photo) ================================================================= COPENHAGEN, Denmark—A U.S. military laboratory has helped Swedes confirm what was suspected for years: A woman was among those who died on a 17th-century warship that sank on its maiden voyage, the museum that displays the ship said Tuesday. The wreck of the royal warship Vasa was raised in 1961, and was remarkably well-preserved after more than 300 years underwater in the Stockholm harbor. It has since been place at the Vasa Museum, one of Stockholm’s top tourist...