Elizabethan coins found in Staffordshire farmer's field declared treasure

BBC: "Elizabethan coins found in farmer's field declared treasure" Sep 23

Seventeen coins from the Elizabethan era discovered in a Staffordshire farmer's field have been formally declared treasure by a coroner. Five groats of Mary I of England and two groats, two sixpences, four threepences and four half groats of Elizabeth I of England were found by metal detectorist Sam Egerton and his friends. "It's a really great feeling," said Mr Egerton from Uttoxeter, who made the discovery in January 2023, after taking up the hobby the year before. The coins will be now valued, with the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery interested in acquiring them for its collection.

Why? What are they "evidence" of? What does this find tell us about Elizabethan society, what does the precise findspot tell us about the organization of the Tudor landscape there (or its re-organization)? What other finds did these "friends" make that were not declared and what relationship were they in qwith the other features of teh site's archaeology (pottery scatters, tile scatters, shifting property boundaries)? Was this in fact a commercial artefact huynting artefact grabfest? Will there be a full and detailed Treasure Report illuminating the archaeology of the field it was found in? Or are the British arkies still going off on the object-centred tanget of pseudo-archaeology, ignoring context and archaeology of trashed and exploited SITES (and their place in landscapes)? Why is this non-news treated as "news"?

MAGAdiots and Today's Archaeology Students

 

In a recent public appearance, US presidential candidate Donald Trump claims immigration policies are failing because in a certain Ohio town, he'd heard, immigrant families are kidnapping and killing their white neighbours' cats and dogs to eat them. A whole lot of his supporters are flocking to social media to "prove" that this really is happening all over the US, including this guy, reposting what an anonymous snooping neighbour reports:

BTW, many Bosnians are Muslims. But there is an issue here, apparently in US schools they don't teach people (or MAGA folk simply do not learn what was presented in class) the difference between carnivore and herbivore dentition. Duh.

But this is a more general issue, society is moving away from the countryside. Here just two decade or so ago, many kids even in the cities, would have a grandma that lives on a little homestead in the country with a cow and chickens who they'd visit or stayed with. Today this is less frequent. Many kids grow up in a concrete desert and the meat comes  pink and bloodless in little plastic pack (and if there were so much as a millimetres long fragment of the quill of a feather in the poultry, the customer would be back in the shop with a complaint about contamination). My son-in-law had never been up close to any livestock bigger than a hamster until I took the family megalith-gawping in the UK and  he was aghast to learn he was to walk in the same field with curious ("dangerous" as he saw it) cows. 

Teaching archaeology to students who have very little idea of how crops grow, what ploughing looks like, how livestock behaves, never met a farmer was an unnerving experience for me, a slightly different generation with different experiences, and brought up in the countryside to boot.  How will archaeology teachers cope in the future.

Oh, by the way, the spitroast was a sheep and the Bosnian guy's neighbour owes him a apology. 

Where the Antiquities Go?

Here's an interesting presentation in the degree of participation of various countries in the World economy...(I got it here). How does the movement of portable antiquities reflect this division of wealth? What other factors (legal, cultural etc.) affect this?

 

Impossible Granite Vases in Egypt: The Toshka Gap

The YouTube video "Impossible Granite Vases in Egypt: by The Toshka Gap" by "Night Scarab" is an informative ands sober look at the claims made by the YouTube pseudoarchaeologists about "lost ancient civilizations" with their supposed "lost technologies" based on these stone vessels, which are dated deepp into the pre-dynastic period. Criticisms have been made of attempts to measure items from the antiquities market and try to use this as "evidence" of a "lost advanced technology". Sometimes proponents of these models attempt to rescue the idea by citing excavated examples. One example has been YouTuber Ben van Kerkwyk from "Uncharted X" making a number of claims about a few well-made, supposedly ancient Egyptian vases from a burial site name Toshka. The video demonstrates pretty convincingly that what is quoted as "evidence" of this, too, it is a false claim. No stone vases were found by Wendorf in Toshka, nor is the photo most often used by the YouTubers from Toshka. This is part one of a short series.

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Posted on YouTube by Night Scarab 5/9/2024 (25,113 views)

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So many more of these glib claiims made by clickbait-farming YouTubers need fact-checking like this.

Kensington Rune Stone

Jahannah James (@jahannahjames 1.6 million followers) attempts to resurrect the "Kensington Rune Stone" often used in discussions of "Vikings in North America" - obviously totally oblivious to the rather extensive literature already explaining it. There is an informative answer from Fredrik Trusohamn at "digging up ancient aliens" (at the moment, rather fewer followers): https://diggingupancientaliens.com/episode-70-the-kensington-runestone.html. More people interested in sensationalist bullshit, than rather more down-to-earth presentations.

Darwin Award in Poland - Kaboom

              The scene of the avoidable tragedy            

Darwin Award contendeant in Poland, metal detectorists here too are not the sharpest knives in the drawer: "Kilkanaście wybuchów w stodole. Sąsiedzi wciąż nie mogą wrócić do swoich domów" TVP2

In the village of Ryczyca near Siedlce, a fire and a dozen or so explosions occurred in a barn where hazardous materials were stored [...]. There could have been one person inside [later confirmed one man was dead and he reportedly belonged to a local metal detecting group PMB]. 32 village residents were evacuated.[...] According to junior brigadier Paweł Kulicki, press officer of the Municipal Commandant of the State Fire Service in Siedlce, firewood, explosives from the Second World War, and LPG cylinders were stored there. - When the first units arrived, explosions could be heard. The wooden barn building was on fire - he says. Firefighters conducted the operation from a distance from the beginning. - Maintaining maximum safety rules, using natural elements that could protect us from fragmentation. There were at least a dozen explosions - explains Kulicki. The building burned down, the fire was brought under control. All that remains are ashes.

The neighbours have not returned to their homes as the firemen and sappers had not yet entered the area to take care of any remaining munitions. Already, the story and comment on the need to regulate the hobby on a Polish archaeology-centred Facebook page ("Detektoryści - fakty i mity/ Detectorists Facts and Myths") has received the first of what'll be a long series of abusive and threatening comments... Detectorists are a breed apart and the same all across Europe. . .

Since, for the reason highlighted above, the possession of such WW2 "souvenirs" is forbidden by law, this was a detectorist/collector flouting that law - and it seems the neighbours knew. And the police? 

Göbekli Tepe Excavator Loses his Cool Over Stratigraphy Comments I

One of the Excavators of Gobekli Tepe posted on Twitter notification that another interim report has appeared (Dr. Oliver Dietrich @odietrich_ · Jul 25, 2023 Hot off the press, the first comprehensive paper on Building F and it’s pillar reliefs at Göbekli Tepe „Early Neolithic imagery in flux. A case study on the reliefs of Building F at Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey“ #Archaeology #GöbekliTepe https://journals.uni-lj.si/DocumentaPraehistorica/article/view/13604). [Special] Building F had most of the internal fill excavated out in 2006-8. Only the upper levels of its structure were exposed, the building has not been dissected to reach the pre-construction features and in that form, it is a discrete structure. So in the light of the fact that initially it was reportedly excavated using a three-layer notation, where (in a nutshell) "I" was modern layers, "II" was a spread of rectangular structures and "III" were sunken oval 'special buildings'. It is clear that instead of actual layers, these were building phases. It remains unclear how the stratigraphy was documented and the excavated material collected. This new report can be expected to contain such information. 

Sadly, like a lot of the publications concerning this key (and already controversial) site, the main focus was on the "things" excavated, in this case even the "ancient art". But the stratigraphy of the building was shown. But not very well, and in a rather disturbing form. On Twitter I asked about this: 

It's easy to publish the excavated "things", pillars are easy to document, but what we need is the "timely publication" of the stratigraphy. It seems to me one very oblique section through the complex 3D stratigraphic structure (where are the edges of layer [lower pit fill] "1"?) is less than satisfactory as a record of anything. Besides which, the disposition and nature of the structure's infill shown in the section drawing and the photo of the same section, simply do not match! The nature and position of the lower interface of "layer 7" for example. I do not see how these "layers" are defined, there is an unnumbered layer between "5" and "3" (!) What is shown as "layer 4" to the right of the pillar has two parts quite clearly differing in rubble content, that rubble being a spill extending into 2, surely.

To illustrate my point, I used this extract of the published photo of the trench's northern profile that I added a section of the photo of the same profile, adjusted for scale. It seems quite clear to me that there are significant differences, which is documentation, and which is decorative infilling? (because they cannot both be documentation of the stratigraphic sequence and a basis for understanding site formation processes and assemblage 'taphonomy'). 

There is also a problem publishing (in the absence of other information) just the one section that cuts obliquely across layers some of which will most likely have come into the sunken area of the building from behind the section, rather than merely one side of it.

Anyway  Dr. Oliver Dietrich @odietrich_ did not answer the question, or refer me to any report that details the actual methods of excavation. He decides to go for insults:

Cutting off an image and telling me a layer is not numbered? Highly professional on your part. And, as you are an archaeologist, you surely know that an image in full sunlight does not show all colour differences/ that layers are also defined by differences in the sediments etc. 

Hmm, I think it is fairly clear (though I admit I did not explain it in detail- this was Twitter) that I have taken a PORTION of the published section to illustrate the point I was making. I chose the bit between the bench and the standing stone, as these provided fixed points against the disposition of the stones could be judged in both (besides which it is utterly unclear what happens at the left end of that section).

The layer that is not numbered is the layer that I said was not numbered. I assumed that "5" referred to the slumped part of the wall, and "6" the truncation of that same wall. It seems not: 

Paul Barford @PortantIssues · 19m Eh? What and where is the number of the black layer on the right between the collapsing wall (5) and layer "3"? There is NOTHING "unprofessional" in questioning a publication, that is why we publish our results, no? Yes, if you actually read what I wrote, you will see that I am not referring merely to "colour" but precisely the density, disposition, actual shape and size of the rock fragments in the photo, versus the way the drawing depicts them. We could also look at the relationship between the lower interface of Layer 7 and the top of the pillar. But the main issue is that one oblique section obviously cannot be the only record of a complex 3D series of deposits.

I think we need less emphasis on the excavated "finds" and more on the context.

Dr. Oliver Dietrich @odietrich_ · 15m 

5. 5 is the number of the layer. 

Paul Barford @PortantIssues · 13m 

So what is the number of the wall? 

Dr. Oliver Dietrich @odietrich_ · 10m 

Why does it need a number? 

O k***a... Excuse my Polish, That surprised me.

Paul Barford @PortantIssues Well, yeah. Heinrich Schliemann did not number them either, I was hoping things had come on a bit since then. How many stratigraphic units can we see in this photo? The DAI has dug out some of the soft bits, leaving selected hard bits. How many, what are their 'relationships? 3:54 PM · Sep 1, 2024

Picture in public domain of surfaces of what seems to have been excavated as "Layer II" and "Layer III":

Nobody on Twitter wanted to count. What actually is happening here? From this overview shot this looks like the excavation methods of G.P. Bushe Foxe at Wroxeter, where he dug down until he hit something hard, a wall stump or floor, which he left upstanding. I think we should be expecting here where the DAI is a guest in Turkey applying their best techniques, we should be seeing there something more like Graham Webster's work at Wroxeter at least, if not Philip Barker's.  No? Let us see what future publications show us. But please no more digging until they've published what they have and we can assess the effectiveness for post-excavation processing of the current excavation and recording methods. 

Göbekli Tepe Excavator Loses his Cool Over Stratigraphy Comments (II)

                    ,                  

 To my comment, perfectly valid in the circumstances of a site like this that has been excavated for so many years that " I think we need less emphasis on the excavated "finds" and more on the context", Dr. Oliver Dietrich @odietrich replied

Thanks for trying to educate me about a site I worked at for 15 years based on one photo and one paper. Have a nice day.

[of course like many people observing this site and the controversy around it, I have read more than "one paper" on it, and I find the treatment of the excavation techniques and documentation of the stratigraphy woefully lacking in all of them, even the ones discussing the C14 dates] So I am afraid I replied:

Paul Barford @PortantIssues · 19h No., the job of your excavation REPORT is to educate me and the general public (including the Turks whose heritage this is) on what you've found. It actually does not do that, it just shows (again) some pretty pillars.

Dr. Oliver Dietrich @odietrich_

In order for this to work, you would have to read it. And now, goodbye.
3:46 PM · Sep 1, 2024

·   The thing is, this is not "his" site, in his country. He is working a guest in a foreign country and should be accountable for the way he went about digging through the otherwise unthreatened stratification - not simply dismiss issues raised by a fellow archaeologist like this. Also it seems to me from this exchange that this sort of professional arrogance is not only exercised by some archaeological professionals when questioned by members of the wider public (like YouTuber Jimmy Corsetti et al who have previously complained about being treated dismissively), but seems far more endemic in our discipline. We need to come down from ivory towers and always be ready explain what we do, how and why. An excavator of Gobekli Tepe publishes a text about a portion of the site, but seems utterly unwilling to discuss the excavation, and seems miffed I do not want to talk instead about the "ancient art" he's written about - but there is enough of that kind of talk from antiquities collectors and dealers and the "looks like" brand of pseudo-archaeologists. Let us talk about archaeology, and that means talking about methods of data collection and stratigraphy. 

Pseudoarchaeology Disseminated: Antiquitist Speculation and a YouTube "Educator"

YouTube clickbait farmer Luke Caverns appeared on some other indoor-hat-wearing podcaster ( #juliandoreypodcast, 1.9K views 8 months ago ) with some junk about "Egyptian's Obsession of Pineal Gland". It's a bit like Demented-Trump-Speak.

[Luke Caverns: 0:05] I mean, it is 100% a fact that our pineal gland which people called like the seat of the Soul, which the Egyptians were well aware of -like you look at the Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horus, it is the same shape as the pineal gland... Have you ever seen this? No, yeah, yeah... So look up, look up the pineal gland, and "Eye of Ra" or "Eye of Horus" ("Horus" is uh spelt h- - o- r- u- s) and [sigh], uh, it's it's very thought... it's thought that.. um... this is done on purpose. You'll see, you'll see it's like uncanny connection between our the pineal gland in our mind (which is where they think that perhaps our soul comes from) [...] let's see, sure, yeah [...] um but on 0:54 the pineal gland there, there's certainly a similarity [...] but there's undoubtedly like some weird similarity there. 

Um, and we know that our modern food and our water is (sic) calcifying the pineal gland, like when when people get, like, when autopsies are performed, uh, especially on, like, G blastomas, which go, like, deep into the brain; cut the brain in half they can see that the pineal gland is calcified. My wife...[host]: Calcified?

[Caverns]: [searching for words] Yeah, yeah, so it's calcified, like it, um.... I don't know the... [waves hands] I'm not you know a medical doctor... but, um... Yeah, something.... something is happening to the pineal gland where it's... like... dying inside the brain, because it comes from water that we drink, cuz it's not happening in other, places in the world.

Uh, my wife she's in medical dental school right now and she [shrugs shoulders] cut a brain in half and saw that, um, so we know that ['accordion hands' gesture]  the water today is calcifying our pineal glands and you know there are theories out there and ['accordion hands' gesture] there's like scant (sic) evidence that that's the seat of the soul and the pineal gland might be our ([air quotes] quote unquote) "antenna" to something else that's out there and the water that we drink dulls down our connection, and has dulled down our connection for... you know, over a hundred years to that, and so people theorize that that could be our antenna. And certainly, it seems like uh the ancient Egyptians knew something significant about the pineal gland or knew that it was significant in some way. They, they had medical doctors; they knew about anatomy...." 

Wow. Definitely the same aimless unstructured self-aggrandising rambling as the senile Donald Trump. Calcified is a pretty common term for when something becomes permeated with calcium (usually) carbonate, like anyone's kettle if they live in a hard water area. It's how many fossils form. General knowledge Mr Caverns. 

                    Wadjet amulets, faience, Quora                              

So when you cut out the crap, Caverns ("has a degree in anthropology") says "the Egyptiand knew about anatomy" and (therefore) would have known about the pineal gland (though Caverns neglects to say under what name it appears in the medical papyri) and (he says - actually some dumbass antiquities collectors [mainly over in the US?] also claim this) the gland "looks like" the dangly bits of the wadjet symbol [that's what it is called, Mr Caverns]. "Therefore" the Ancient Egyptians were "obsessed" with the pineal gland.

That is, in Egyptological parlance, complete bollocks. The connection between the eye of Horus and the pineal gland is a modern speculation not supported by any evidence.

The pineal gland is a tiny, pinenut-shaped (hence the name) gland buried deep in the brain. It is as endocrine gland producing melatonin that has a role in regulating the sleep-wake cycle. The Egyptians did not in fact know much about the anatomy of the brain, in mummification, in order not to damage the shape of the head, if the brain was removed, it was scrambled with a metal tool and pulled and/or rinsed out in bits through the nose. This rather prevented them from getting much of an idea about its anatomy.

                      (Quora)                     

Both Horus and Re were represented inEgyptian iconography as a falcon. The wadjet represents the eye of the god Horus, it symbolized royal power, protection, and good health (the Eye of Re mentioned by Caverns was similar but also different). In mythology there was one legend of how Horus lost his eye while battling with Set and what subsequently happened to it. It takes the form of a stylized human eye, but usually incorporates am eyebrow, a dark line extending behind the rear corner of the eye, a cheek marking below the center or forward corner of the eye, and a line extending below and toward the rear of the eye that ends in a curl or spiral. It is very clear that the cheek marking resembles that found on lanner falcons (Falco biarmicus) 

   Prometheus tortured by the eagle          
  (black-figure kylix,560-550 BC)        
Wikipedia       

But it gets worse. Building on the idea that these Ancient Egyptians had some advanced technology and advanced knowledge, the speaker gets carried away in his search for "interesting titbits" of "information" that will get him invited back again.

And certainly [...] the ancient Egyptians [...], they, they had medical doctors; they knew about anatomy.... when they would torture people, you know, how.... you know, how, um.... when people get liver cancer they can cut off like 80% of the  liver and it'll grow back, did you know that?

[host]: [trying to look pensive] no! 

[Caverns]:  Yeah, so if you get cancer in your liver the reason people can beat it is because they can cut off like 80% of your liver ['accordion hands'] and it will regrow itself [...] it's the only organ in the  body that can do that.
The Egyptians knew that, so when they tortured people, over time they cut out [gleeful smile and scything movement with finger] they cut out half the liver and it grow back, and they cut it out again [gleeful smile and cutting gestures] it grew back and, they'd cut it out again.

[host, gleefully], Oh, ho ho ho ho ho! 

[Caverns]: Yeah, yeah [broad smile], so, um, and I think it can grow back in a year time I think [...]

While the liver does have this ability when conditions are right, there is zero evidence for the practice the young anthropologist confidently, and with such pleasure, states as a fact. I think he's getting confused with the myth of the Titan Prometheus. 

Large Scale Looting of Sudan's National Museum

Artur Obluski has just reported some terrible news. According to the latest reports, large scale looting of Sudan's National Museum in Khartoum is being confirmed. This museum has the world's most extensive and comprehensive Nubian collection, with artefacts spanning eons from the Palaeolithic era to the Islamic period. The collection of the Museum, built in 1971, covers a range of cultures, including the A-Group culture, C-Group culture, Kerma Culture, Middle Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom of Egypt, Napata, Meroë, X-Group culture and medieval Makuria, there are artefacts from prominent sites such as Meroe, Musawwarat es-Sufra, and Naqa. Looting and damage was reported in May 2023 and in June ( Geraldine Kendall Adams, 'Reports of cultural destruction and looting as fighting escalates in Sudan' Museums Journal 16 June 2023). Further looting was reported at the beginning of June 2024: Geoff Emberling, ' Conflict Looting of Sudan National Museum' Jebel Barkal Archaeological Project Blog (Michigan)

"The civil war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces militia (RSF) has been going on for over a year. The RSF have controlled most of Khartoum for most of the war, including the area of the Sudan National Museum. There have been rumors for many months that they have looted the museum to some as-yet-unknown degree– no museum staff has been able to go to the museum to inspect. But a very upsetting report in the New York Times today states that the museum has been looted, along with the nearby Khalifa House Museum (where objects related to the Sudanese uprising against British rule from 1881-98 were held).

Now it seems that access has been attained and the scale of the damage ascertained and the news is not good.

A Private Collection of Ancient Egyptian Stone Vessels

                          US private antiquities collection                     
   

A recent Limitless You Tube channel segment by Matt Beall featured alt.history YouTuber Dan Richards, but the main interest for me was not him, but a fleeting view of the podcaster's personal collection of Egyptian stone vessels, a couple of items from which have previously been mentioned on this blog. These trophies are proudly spread out, inexplicably, on some bad taste patterned tablecloth with pink glitter (?) scattered around them. There are also some pottery vessels there too it seems. I had no idea that Mr Beall could have so many of these items. The two then discuss (of course, given the company present) the potential use of (tomographic scans of) these vessels as "evidence" of some mythical "lost ancient technology". In that context, it becomes just as relevant as before to ask what documentation there is of where these come from. For how many of the ones in this collection is there any decent documentation of collection history (and legal export), let alone where they were dug up and how secure that context was. Also I wonder what the government and people of Egypt and Sudan will think seeing this collection - in particular learning how many of them were acquired after 2011. Of course that's the ones that are not outright fakes... Some of them are rather smaller than they should be for the type and too oddly proportioned. I also noted a couple made of very similar looking stone, suggesting the products of a modern factory coming onto the market in the period of time this buyer was buying, rather than odd vessels from different ancient assemblages from different places and dates which would have given greater heterogenity.

 

I am not going to engage here with the other points made by Mr Richards.

Polish- Ukrainian WW2 Heritage Not Just "Wołyń"

In Poland a court has decided, on the request of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland, that the country's controversial Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) must reopen the investigation into the "Vistula" action (the forced resettlement of the Ukrainian population from SE Poland in its post-War boundaries), which was discontinued by the institution's prosecutors several months ago. (Anna Gmiterek-Zabłocka "Głośne śledztwo wraca do IPN. "Słuszna decyzja sądu".." TokFM 24.08.2024).

Operation "Vistula" involved the forced resettlement of Polish citizens of Ukrainian and Lemko ethnicity from southeastern Poland in 1947, affecting approximately 140,000 people. The operation was orchestrated by the communist authorities in Poland. The prosecution of those responsible for the deportations had been demanded by various groups, including the president of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland and the chairman of the Lemko Union Presidium.

The justification given by the IPN for closing the investigation at the end of November 2023 was that there was no evidence to support the claim that "the resettlement under Operation 'Vistula' constituted a crime against humanity or a communist crime". The IPN argued that the decision to implement Operation "Vistula" was made to "ensure the safety of citizens" and that the deportation was intended to protect the population and to disrupt the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's access to supplies and intelligence from local residents. The IPN further claimed that no ethnic criteria were used in the resettlement and that the evacuation was conducted "in a humanitarian manner" (I do not know their documentation, but that the claim about the lack of ethnic discrimination seems dubious - possibly it is based on the fact that if there were any Poles living in Ukrainian villages in the region, they too were expelled before the villages were razed. The Union of Ukrainians in Poland and an association from Gorlice appealed the IPN's decision to the District Court in Warsaw. They argued that the case should not have been dismissed, as the IPN had failed to consider important research findings. The court agreed with their position. The investigation into Operation 'Vistula' will return to the IPN Prosecutor's Office," announced the Union of Ukrainians in Poland. Historians have welcomed the court's decision, considering it appropriate.

]Of course there is a parallel situation, the lands they were resettled to had been depopulated of the remaining German population,(many also had fled the advancing Red Army, never to return), forcibly resettled to Germany after the War. The villages they took over had been German for some 600 years before that and there are whole regions of western, south western Poland where the village structures, architecture and 'grain' of the landscape are "German" in feel. The same goes for large bits of Pomerania and former Ostpreussen, but to a lesser extent because the Belarussian Front of the Red Army was far more destructive (over-enthusiastically destructive) in these regions (not just the buildings, here were egregious episodes of gang rapes and arbitrary shootings, Bucha and Irpin have deep roots in the Russian mentality)].* The tragedy of the War did not end on May 9th(or whenever) 1945 with the capitulation of the Nazis.

*Actually the same thing happened when the Russian "Imperial Army" entered Ostpreussen in the First World War

Stolen Fragments

       policing is one part of           
           the problem that involves          
 wider public attitudes   
      

New book soon to be out:  Stolen Fragments Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts by Roberta Mazza (Redwood Press), 17th September 2024 272 pages. $30.00 Hardcover ISBN: 9781503632509.

In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, announced a recent purchase of a Biblical artefact—a fragment of papyrus, just discovered, carrying lines from Paul's letter to the Romans, and dated to the second century CE. Noted scholar Roberta Mazza was stunned. When was this piece discovered, and how could Green acquire such a rare item? The answers, which Mazza spent the next ten years uncovering, came as a shock: the fragment had come from a famous collection held at Oxford University, and its rightful owners had no idea it had been sold.

The letter to the Romans was not the only extraordinary piece in the Green collection. They soon announced newly recovered fragments from the Gospels and writings of Sappho. Mazza's quest to confirm the provenance of these priceless fragments revealed shadowy global networks that make big business of ancient manuscripts, from the Greens' Museum of the Bible and world-famous auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, to antique shops in Jerusalem and Istanbul, dealers on eBay, and into the collections of renowned museums and universities.

Mazza's investigation forces us to ask what happens when the supposed custodians of our ancient heritage act in ways that threaten to destroy it. Stolen Fragments illuminates how these recent dealings are not isolated events, but the inevitable result of longstanding colonial practices and the outcome of generations of scholars who have profited from extracting the cultural heritage of places they claim they wish to preserve. Where is the boundary between protection and exploitation, between scholarship and larceny?

I'll be interested to see if, and to what extent, she covers the "investigation" (I am using that term rather loosely) of the British police, bless 'em, into the connections between a former Oxford University scholar and a number of other items of papyri that are reported to have disappeared from the same famous collection held at Oxford University and that have never been seen since. This story is not over.

The book will hopefully provoke some discussion into wider public attitudes, The Museum of the Bible, accumulating THINGS in order to tell a specific watered-down story in the interests of a certain group, but apparently nobody was asking the question (or rather the question was being widely ignored) where those "things" were coming from and whether other stories were being obliterated by this stuff being acquired, that infringes on the interests of not just one group, but multiple groups - and ultimately us all. These are questions we should be asking. Get the book.

Play of Euripides on Excavated Papyrus

Imagine if they'd been dug up by artefact hunters and without being transcribed, anlaysed or interpreted sold on eBay to a buyer only interested in having something 'cool' in their ephemeral private collection, that may be saved by the heirs or simply discarded as "grandpa's old junk" (Guillermo Carvajal, 'Previously unknown fragments of two lost tragedies by Euripides, discovered in an Egyptian papyrus' LBV Magazine, August 4, 2024):

Two scholars from the University of Colorado Boulder have unearthed significant fragments from two lost tragedies by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. This discovery, made after months of painstaking research, is hailed as one of the most substantial findings in over fifty years.

The journey began in November 2022 when Basem Gehad, an archaeologist with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, sent a papyrus to Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, an assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado Boulder. The papyrus was discovered at the ancient site of Philadelphia in Egypt

The settlement of Gerza in the Fayoum was known as Philadelphia in the Ptolemaic era. It was established in the 3rd century BC as a central settlement in the framework of an agricultural reclamation project implemented by King Ptolemy II (Philadelphia) in the Fayoum region, with the aim of securing food sources for the Egyptian kingdom. An Egyptian archaeological mission began excavation work here in 2016 and revealed archaeological material from the period from the 3rd c. BC until the end of the 3rd century AD

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Wealth Distribution

Reportedly, 50% of the world's GDP is produced in the areas coloured green.

Guess where most of the world's portable antiquities are bought and sold. And guess where the majority of the pieces of that stolen history come from....

Edinburgh University Text on "the Göbekli Tepe Calendar": Another Major Media Fail',

Gürkan Ergin, ' The Göbekli Tepe calendar and the Younger Dryas Impact: another major media fail', ArcheoThoughts Posted on August 16, 2024

Major media outlets have recently been reporting on a new sensational claim that animal carvings on a stone pillar at the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey are a very early form of calendar, and that they commemorate a cosmic impact about 13 000 years ago that triggered the Younger Dryas cold snap (Sweatman 2024). This coverage has been almost universally uncritical. I have seen no attempt to actually evaluate the claim, even though it should be obvious to even moderately informed readers that the study is highly speculative and does not support its findings adequately. [...] The press release from the University of Edinburgh starts with “Markings on a stone pillar at a 12,000 year-old archaeological site in Turkey likely represent the world’s oldest solar calendar, created as a memorial to a devastating comet strike, experts suggest.” This is the main message that made its way, usually uncritically, into the coverage from major outlets [...]

[...]

We live in an age in which a sensational speculation consistently gets a lot more coverage than a reasoned, well supported conclusion, even in allegedly serious media. Institutions such as AAAS and public figures such as journalists have a responsibility to inquire before they disseminate, and when they do disseminate, they have a responsibility to be critical.

The media used to consider itself a fourth estate in our body politic, with a role to play in keeping the citizenry informed.

Academics in general have a responsibility to evaluate the ideas they see disseminated, and to help the public make sense of them. I will continue to do so as best I can.

Too bad the Archaeology Department of the University of Edinburgh cannot see their way to doing the same. Or any other archaeological body in the UK ("not my problem M8")

Anyway, the carvings are quite obviously vulvas, lots of them, anyone can see... surely. Prove me wrong.

  

Sweatman, M. B. (2024). Representations of calendars and time at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe support an astronomical interpretation of their symbolism. Time and Mind, 1–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876

Language in and Around Ukraine

 What is the relationship between language and culture?

----------------------------------

Olexander Scherba 🇺🇦 @olex_scherba

A Russian TV show introduces the “local dialect” of Russians in Belgorod oblast near Ukraine. The anchor seems to understand nothing, but Ukrainians understand every word.

Because “the dialect” turns out to be Ukrainian.

As putin says, “it’s historically our land”. #StandWithUkraine

A Russian TV show introduces the “local dialect” of Russians in Belgorod oblast near Ukraine. The anchor seems to understand nothing, but Ukrainians understand every word.

‘Cause “the dialect” turns out to be Ukrainian.

As putin says, “it’s historically our land”.#StandWithUkraine

A 🇷🇺 TV show introduces the “local dialect” of russians in Belgorod oblast near Ukraine. The anchor seems to understand nothing, but Ukrainians understand every word.

‘Cause “the dialect” turns out to be Ukrainian.

As putin says, “it’s historically our land”.#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/1XWdR9qyBM

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) August 15, 2024

Olexander Scherba 🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) August 15, 2024

------------------------------------ -

The funniest part is when the voice over says "you won't find these words in any dictionary in the world!" And then they go back to the studio and the girl just speaks a local dialect of Ukrainian. Once again, we see the Russians refuting the existence of the Ukrainian language but instead calling it a "dialect" (of Russian). This little girl is taking part in this charade.

Within Ukraine there are several linguistic zones, those maps that separate Ukraine into two clearly defined zones of "Russian language" and "Ukrainian language" are in fact misleading and flat out lazy and awful journalism. It's more like this: 

                                     .                                          

Although Central Ukraine is often regarded as having Ukrainian as the native tongue, in truth a large portion of the Ukrainian spoken in central Ukraine consists of Surzhyk, this is a mixed Ukrainian/Russian sociolect due to centuries of Russian domination. The western region is actually the region where the more "pure" form of Ukrainian is spoken. Interestingly, this map actually depicts Kyiv as being Russian speaking. It is true that in that city, day-to-day interactions are almost exclusively in Russian, even if people identify more with the Ukrainian language  (map from Map Porn)

As any Ukrainian will tell you, the modern state, the one the Russians want now to wipe off the map, kill all the people (or forcibly Russianise them), and steal its resources is much smaller than the actual extent of Ukrainianness and the two republics founded after the end of the First World War and then attacked by Poland and the Bolsheviks. It is not just Kursk and Belgorod (Bilhorod - where this girl is from). 

I am actually working today on editing a volume about a site right on the eastern border of what is now Poland that in fact was a centre of the Halych-Volhynian principality. The material culture of the 13th/14th centuries is quite unlike that a few dozen kilometres to the west, there is a very clear difference. Most of the Ukrainians were driven out after WW2 (many forcibly resettled in the east of Poland in areas that Germans had previously been deported from). In the northeast are territories that formed part of the Sloboda Ukraine (Slobozhanshchyna) that is the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk but also parts of the Belgorod, Kursk, and Voronezh Oblasts of SW Russia. Also worthy of also is the large area Ukraine lost to the Soviet Union east of the Sea of Azov and bordering on Georgia and the Caucasus mountains, the lands of the Kuban Cossacks, formerly the territory of the Crimean Khanate in the 16th and 17th centuries.  

(map from here)

US Right-Wing Conspiracists on ISIL Destruction in Iraq

American conservative political commentator, author, activist, and television presenter Candace Owens Farmer writes:

Candace Owens @RealCandaceO 5:36 PM · Aug 15, 2024 ·

Sometimes I think perpetual war in the Middle East is about destroying what remains of the ancient world so they can continue to sell us fairytales about what has happened and where we come from.

Orwellian quest to fully control the narrative by making placing history into the hands of those who print the textbooks.

2.2M Views .

Textbooks that I am going to guess she's never read, because the enemies are "they" who make "textbooks". People who've read her stuff conclude for example, that "Candace Owens is certain the Bible is the only place we look to understand the world, denies evolution, and believes scientists are satanists". As Professor Bill Farley notes " Pseudoarchaeology is on the verge of becoming a pillar of conservative thought". Of course in the USA it always has with Biblical literalism (creationism, the anti-evolution Snopes trial, belief in ancient giants, quests for evidence of the Flood and Noah’s Ark etc). It was the same with the refusal to acknowledge that the Moundbuilders were indigenous but rather the Lost Tribes of Israel (see also the "Book of Mormon"). This type of conservatism with its inbuilt xenophobia, chauvenisms and racism fosters the development of pseudoscience to mirror and bolster such views. Then we get the skull-measuring and claims of "vanished white master civilisations" behind any progress made by the non-white inhabitants of this planet. Wherever there’s pseudoscience of this kind there’s almost invariably racism. Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6 · 12h was actually stationed there in the ill-fated and ill-advised US-led invasion of Iraq but still does not understand what was going on:

"ISIS invaded Iraq with an entire FLEET of new vehicles. Who paid for these I wonder? 🤔 And who trained them?// Who paid ISIS to destroy the ancient ruins of the Biblical city of Nineveh, in Mosul, Iraq?? They went in on a mission. They brought in heavy machinery and jackhammers. This was coordinated and funded. Why? 🤔
1.7min views

Actually, far from bringing in anything, ISIS was in occupation of Mosul (ie right next to Nineveh/Kalhu) since 10 June 2014 and the destruction took place between January and the end of August 2015. The looting of antiquities had a lonbger timespan - began under US rule (Corsetti seems to have been there c. 2009 when it was already in full flow).

War and Landscape Change in Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused so much devastation that the front lines are clearly visible from space (Business Ukraine mag@Biz_Ukraine_Mag 14.08.2024)

Angels... Demons and Ignorance

 

A Good Auctioneer

"Good auctioneer". Two attractive and interesting ancient coins (separate lots, same UK auction - Numisbids) where we can confidently say that their sale involves no damage to the archaeological record whatsoever. This is Responsible collecting.

British Heritage Vandalism Abroad

       British archaeological heritage looted        
    and they're OK with that    

In Britain, there is a national Scheme that encourages members of the public to go out with metal detectors and spades and dig up historical sites to see what they can find and pocket. The system pats looters on the head, calls them "citizen archaeologists" and "heritage heroes" if they show the arkies the good bits of looted past and hand over any gold or silver etc. The looters talk of their "rights" to use the archaeological heritage just how they like, and are disparaging of anyone who points out they are damaging the heritage for the rest of us. With attitudes like that, it is not surprising what happens when we let these heritage-negligent islanders into Europe: "British tourist sparks outrage scrawling family’s initials on world heritage site" [Standard 9 Aug 2024].

A British man has sparked outrage after he was caught carving his children’s initials into an ancient wall at Pompeii. The 37-year-old was reported to Italian authorities for defacing the Domus of the Vestals, a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts huge numbers of tourists each year. According to Italian newspaper Secolo d'Italia the tourist had even begun to inscribe the date before he was apprehended. When questioned, the man, whose identity has not been disclosed, claimed he wanted to "leave a sign of his visit". He has since apologised for his actions. The tourist has been reported to the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Torre Annunziata for damaging artistic heritage. Under new Italian regulations, he will be required to pay for the restoration of the damaged site and face a fine.

Sources are suggesting that the man was Baz Thugwit, an office worker from Durham. This has yet to be confirmed, the man needs to be named and shamed as a deterrent to others. Actions have consequences. Obviously, it could have been anyone since the public media in Britain mainly portray archaeological sites as places to be "interacted with" and exploited for personal (self-centred) entertainment and profit - like through "metal detecting". They need to get a good education, but archaeologists over there on the island really can't be bothered to try and teach the public what real archaeology is, it's easier to do the dumbdown.  

Gobekli Tepe: YouTuber Rudely Tells the Arkies What's What

"You sound like a dumb person for 

being content with the total lack of excavations -

and the fact that a full excavation has been 

deferred to future generations" (Jimmy Corsetti)

Former US soldier with no archaeological competence, now YouTube personality:

Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6 · 15h
It is a matter of FACT that full-scale excavations of GOBEKLI TEPE have been indefinitely postponed, despite only ~5-10% excavated.
Any archaeologist, anthropologist or academic of history that’s not denouncing this crime is either corrupt, incompetent, or a coward.

This is not at all any kind of "bright insight", in fact it's rather myopic. Rather, I would say, let us have a full publication of this complex site up to the present state of excavation, some proper discussion of the techniques and results, before trying to tackle any more. I think there are some fundamental questions about the way the stratigraphy and phasing have been handled, and I think there needes to be some stock-taking done. No more excavation until this has been done/, please.

Dnepr Hoards

 

There are a group of Early Medieval hoards of metal ornaments (fibulae, appliques, belt fittings etc) in the forest steppe zone of the Middle Dnepr region called the Martynivka type. The British Museum has some of the artefacts from the eponymous site. They are often linked with the Early Slavs, that's a bit dubious, but certainly they do not belong to the 'Antes' which is what many archaeologists - especially the Soviet ones - say they are. But in any case they are a pretty characteristic element of Ukrainian culture. Most of them are old finds (and most of the new stuff disappears onto the antiquities market). One of the best-published finds is the Gaponovo hoard of 411 itemsdiscovered in the village of Gaponovo (Krasnooktabrskoie) in the Ko renevo district of the Kursk region, Russia. The site was excavated and this shows the hoard had been buried in the archaeological deposits of a settlement belonging to the 5th-7th -century Kolochin culture (Gavritukhin I., Oblomsky A. Gaponovo hoard and its historic and culture context . Moscow, 1996). Another recent find was made in 2009, on the territory of the village of Zamostie near the city of Sudzha, Kursk Region. This one contained more than 1500 items and seems to have been a votive deposit in a wetland environment (Rodinkova VE, Saprykina IA, Sycheva SA 2018,КЛАД ИЗ СУДЖИ-ЗАМОСТЬЯ И ПРОБЛЕМА СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНОЙ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ ДНЕПРОВСКИХ РАННЕСРЕДНЕВЕКОВЫХ КЛАДОВ I ГРУППЫ РОССИЙСКАЯ АРХЕОЛОГИЯ, 2018, № 2, с. 130–147 ).

The topicality of this is that it is precisely in the area of the finding of these hoards on the NE fringes of the distribution of this body of material that Ukrainian forces are currently advancing into Russia in response to Russia's invasion of Ukrainian territory. If they hold this territory, maybe the Russian capitulation will include a clause on this material being surrendered by Russia so that it can be studied as a whole alongside that in Ukraine. And the British Museum can give back their bits. 

Cunie in UK auction

 

Cunie in UK auction marketed online:

"lot 183. Uruk III [...] 26.3 grams, 55 mm [...]. From an important collection of a London gentleman, 1980-2000s" "Believed to have been published in Cornell (ATCPC), no.140"

 It has got just one photo!  Why only one photo? How many sides are inscribed? The fabric looked a bit off, but when you check there are a lot of Uruk III tablets, apparently excavated ones, of this soapy/waxy clay and an equal (?) number of the more usual silty clay and some with a bit coarser sand temper. 

Where was this object before "1980"? Uruk [Warka] is in modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq, and Iraq has had antiquities laws for how long, eh? Maybe the (anonymous) seller can tell us - or maybe the UK auction house handling the sale? 

What kind of information is "Believed to have been published in Cornell (ATCPC), no.140"? Absolutely non, but it looks "official", no?. The collector is supposed to be too embarrassed not knowing what ATCPC means - but it is CORNELL, so must be good, eh?  What is the real reference? "Ancient Texts [....].... Private Collection?", "Arty Taxdodgers Cornell....?" What is it? And what significance is THIS tablet being "number 140" in that collection? 

Somebody "only in it for the 'istry": Metal Detecting Finds for Sale

           Artefacts looted from the historical record straight onto eBay                

Metal Detecting Finds: Lot H 'LUCKY BAG' Roman, Buckles, Buttons, Coins, Artefacts,
seller magnetyx (473) Located in: Bristol, United Kingdom

"If you bid and win you will get Lucky Bag: Lot H, exactly as shown. Lot H contains ...
1x bag of Roman Coins
1x bag of Buckles
1x bag of General Coins
1x bag of Buttons
1x bag of Mixed Artefacts
Lot D weighs approximately 1.7kg. The Finds have been washed but not scrutinised in detail and all the finds need to be cleaned properly to get them to look their best.
Good luck if you decide to bid"

The Festival Of Archaeology fortnight Has Come to an End, Leaving Questions Unanswered

In Britain they have this cutesy "#FestivalOfArchaeology" publicity stunt where all sorts of events are staged (some in the past involving "metal detecting" - ugh) anyway this year it lasted a fortnight. At the beginning there was an "ask an Archaeologists a question" session, the idea of this bit of public outreach being that members of the publlic could ask a real archaeologist a real question about real archaeology and they'd get an answer. Hmmm. Cute eh? Possibly they were catering just for the type of "what-do-you-do-when-it-rains?" or "do-you-find-much-gold?" type questions. Anyway since at the moment public archaeology is somewhat in competition with the Graham-Hancock-youTube "ancient lost civilization" take on the past (the popular Netflix series "Ancient Apocalypse" got a lot more viewers than anything actual archaeology has to show). I thought I'd see how British archaeology would cope with a Hancockian question or two. So here's one:

Paul Barford @PortantIssues ·Jul 19
#AskAnArchaeologist, What is being done in Britain to make available to the public the results of any current projects with relevance to the question of the existence of the possible Lost Ancient Proto-Civilization discussed in the popular Netflix docuseries #AncientApocalypse?

and the answer was revealing on just where public archaeology is going in Britain today....

I asked another one, a bit more specific, about the British evidence for that famed Younger Dryas Impact that you can read about in the Internet. I put a picture on this one, and the question is quite specific - and the answer would give the opportunity to explain a number of methodological issues (and the title's got "diamonds" in it):

Paul Barford @PortantIssues ·Jul 19
#AskAnArchaeologist, there is material claimed as representing a Younger Dryas Comet Impact (c. 12.9kya) at Watcombe Bottom, IoW, what is its archaeological context & is there more research in material of this nature in Britain? https://researchgate.net/publication/268390328_Nanodiamond-Rich_Layer_Across_Three_Continents_Consistent_with_Major_Cosmic_Impact_at_12800_Cal_BP 

So, whether or not Britain feels part of Europe any more, the whole of Britain and "Doggerland") are right in the centre of the shadow to the east of the effects of this claimed cosmic catastrophe - obviously something very significant to the prehistory and "story of our land", no?   So the answer to this question is pretty symptomatic too on the ability of British archaeologists to present to the public their side of a story that for at least part of the public that is fascinated by the mysteries of the past is part of popular culture... 

Just in case I was just a little too subtle above... despite the fact that thousands of people believe what they are told by the "experts" like Graham Hancock and his YouTube imitators that archaeologists "have got it wrong", "have not got a clue", or (worse) "are hiding from us all the truth", neither question was answered by a British archaeologist. As far as I know, there has not been any widely-accessible official response (such as a website or page on their own website) by any British archaeological body or organization to "Ancient Apocalypse". They've just capitulated to this widespread public misinformation about the past. the same with the Younger Dryas nonsense. It does not matter that there ARE technical articles in the internet in journals like Nature saying the reasons why there was no "impact", it's all there, but is it accessible to the average Joe Public. Will my Brexit-supporting Mum get anything out of it if she reads it? (Answer, no). 

Quite apart from the duty we have to inform public opinion (or am I dreadfully out of touch here?) there is a more important practical reason why archaeology should not be letting this slide. If tens of thousands of members of the public (that potentially includes developers, various shades of "influencers", local government officials as well as Westminster lawmakers) are firm in their belief that archaeology is a (deceitful) scam that cannot provide real answers, them why will they be persuaded to support our work in any way at all? 

After all, a bloke with a metal detector can find as many "treasures" as a fully funded dig done with little brushes and sieves that mostly finds only charred grains and potsherds the size of a thumbnail. A bus driver with a YouTube channel can show (and solve) more "mysteries of the past" (big stones "nobody knows how they were moved, pictures of ancient Egyptian lightbulbs, Sassanian pots that look like batteries, carvings on standing stones that look like aliens, etc.) that archaeologists who just talk about abstractions.... 

British archaeologists have surrendered long ago to the artefact hunters and collectors with their metal detectors and spades. Here too they also show their innate passivity. 

Please, show that you can answer the question. 

UK Archaeology Group Staff Member Under Investigation for Fraud

Fraud has been alleged in the UK in a "community archaeology" project, the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP). Its "former treasurer was charged with fraud and false accounting by Norfolk Police, amid suggestions in the media that over £100k may have gone missing from the project over a number of years". This group has been working with metal detectorists between 1998 and 2018. This comes after a recent case when the treasurer of another UK archaeology group was charged with a similar offence in May 2019 (" Detectorist Reportedly Defrauds Archaeological Organization of £11k"and the scandal involving the group "Detecting for Veterans" in 2021. How many more are we not hearing about? And whatever has happened to amateur archaeology in Britain these days that from being an honest and genteel pastime, it has become associated with such criminal activity ?

An Ancient Land.

US "Historian making videos on ancient civilizations":

Luke Caverns @lukecaverns · Jul 15
Good to be back in an ancient land. The Zapotec world is incredible.

"an ancient land" - as if there was nothing in his  native Texas before the white landgrab. In his local museum, are the Native American cultures housed in the Natural History museum alongside the butterflies and stuffed birds like one I saw in Florida? To me, that's a telling attitude.