Ancient palace discovered in Sudan

by Sean McLachlan on


Archaeologists digging in the ancient city of Meroë in the Sudan have discovered what they believe is a palace dating to 900 BC.

The team discovered the building under the remains of a later palace. It’s believed to be the oldest building yet discovered at the site, which was once the capital of the Kingdom of Kush. Kush had several great cities and exported iron all the way to China. From 747-656 BC, the Kushites ruled Egypt as the twenty-fifth dynasty. The empire lasted from about 1000 BC to 350 AD before being conquered by the Empire of Axum in Ethiopia.

Meroë is one of the greatest archaeological sites in Africa. It has more than 200 pyramids, although they’re smaller than the largest Egyptian pyramids.

For a long time Meroë and Kush were understudied in favor of the more famous Egyptian civilization. Now scholars are beginning to realize that this Sudanese civilization contributed a lot to Egyptian culture.

Meroë is two-and-a-half hours north of Khartoum and it’s feasable to do in a long day trip. If you’re not going to the Sudan, the British Museum in London has a whole room dedicated to this civilization and its art.

Image courtesy Sven-steffenarndt via Wikimedia Commons

Ancient port discovered in Egypt

by Sean McLachlan on


Archaeologists working in Egypt have discovered a harbor on the Red Sea that was used for international trade.

The excavation at Mersa Gawasis has revealed traces of an ancient harbor. It’s long been known that the Egyptians traded down the coast of Africa, but the location of their embarkation was unknown. A famous carving at Deir el-Bahari, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, shows an ocean-going vessel like the one pictured above and scenes a land with thatched huts and exotic items for sale such as ivory and giraffes. Inscriptions identify the land as Punt but don’t mention where it is. Archaeologists have speculated that it was in the Horn of Africa, either in Eritrea or Djibouti, or where the modern unrecognized states of Somaliland or Puntland are today.

The first recorded voyages to Punt started in the reign of the Pharaoh Sahure, who ruled from 2487-2475 BC. Regular trading missions were sent out for centuries to buy exotic items for Egypt’s elite. Queen Hatshepsut’s famous engravings of Punt date to around 1490-1460 BC.

Scholars have traditionally been doubtful of the Egyptians’ ability to make long sea voyages. Further excavation at Mersa Gawasis may change this view and open up new possibilities for Egyptian influence on other ancient cultures. While the excavations at Mersa Gawasis are not yet open to public view, Deir el-Bahari is a popular attraction and you can wonder at the scenes depicting the mysterious land of Punt for yourself.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Macedonia: what’s in a name? A major controversy!

by Sean McLachlan on


The erection of a giant statue of Alexander the Great in the Macedonian capital of Skopje is the latest round in an ongoing controversy with neighboring Greece.

The statue, erected on Tuesday as part of an ambitious urban development plan called Skopje 2014, drew criticism from some Greek politicians and nervous mutterings from European diplomats. They say it’s deliberate provocation because Greece objects to the name Macedonia. Using this name, some say, implies a claim over the Greek province of Macedonia, where Alexander the Great was actually born. Of course neither country existed at the time, the land being divided up into a patchwork of ancient city-states. When history is used as a propaganda tool, historic accuracy goes out the window.

Macedonia, officially the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, broke off from Yugoslavia in 1991 and has been in a row with Greece about its name ever since. This isn’t some minor squabbling. Greece successfully blocked Macedonia’s entry into NATO and is stonewalling the country’s attempts to join the European Union. With Macedonia being one of the poorest countries in Europe, this argument over a name is costing them a lot.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Roman bath discovered in York

by Sean McLachlan on


The remains of a Roman bath have been discovered in York in northern England.

Archaeologists made the find while excavating ahead of construction of the new City of York Council Headquarters. York (then called Eboracum) was an important trading center in Roman times. So important, in fact, that it had more than one bath. The image above is from the basement of the Roman Bath pub, where a small museum shows off the remains of another bath.

Based on coins and pottery found at the site, the newly discovered bath dates from the late second and early third centuries AD. The site will be open to the public for free this weekend.

Unlike many Roman cities, York continued to be important mercantile and religious center in the later Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods. The Yorkshire Museum exhibits a huge collection of Viking artifacts from an earlier excavation.

Public bathhouses were very popular in Roman culture. They included cold, warm, and hot pools and places for relaxation and socializing. The best preserved example is at the appropriately named city of Bath, an easy day trip from London.

Mummies of the World exhibition opens in Philadelphia

by Sean McLachlan on


Mummies are endlessly fascinating. To see a centuries-old body so well preserved brings the past vividly to life. While Egyptian mummies get most of the press, bodies in many regions were mummified by natural processes after being deposited in peat bogs or very dry caves.

Mummies of the World is a state-of-the-art exhibition bringing together 150 mummies and related artifacts. It opened last weekend at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia after successful runs in L.A. and Milwaukee. Visitors will see mummified people and animals from all over the world and learn how they came to be so well preserved.

Besides the required collection of ancient Egyptians, there are numerous mummies from other regions, such as this prehistoric man from the Atacama Desert in Chile.

%Gallery-126801%From South America there’s the famous Detmold child from Peru, dated to 4504-4457 B.C., more than 3,000 years before the birth of King Tutankhamen. This ten-month-old kid was naturally preserved by the incredibly dry climate of the Peruvian desert. There’s also a tattooed woman from Chile dating to sometime before 1400 AD who also dried out in a desert.

From Germany there’s Baron von Holz, who died in the 17th century and was preserved in the family crypt. Then there’s the Orlovits family: Michael, Veronica, and their baby Johannes. They were discovered in a forgotten crypt in Vac, Hungary, in 1994, where they had been buried in the early nineteenth century. The cool, dry conditions of the crypt and the pine wood used in their caskets helped preserve them.

There are animal mummies too. There’s a mummified cat from the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BC), the same time in Egypt that the mummy portraits started coming into fashion. There are several naturally preserved mummies such as frogs, a lizard, a hyena, and even a howler monkey that dried out in desert conditions and are on display.

Several interactive exhibits give visitors a chance to see where mummies come from, how they were preserved naturally or artificially, and what they feel like. Visitors can even match DNA samples to see which mummies are related.

Mummies of the World runs until 23 October 2011.

[All photos courtesy American Exhibitions, Inc.]