“Has the burial of any Roman emperor or empress ever been discovered intact?”
A student asked me that question in a history class two years ago. At the time, I had no idea, and promised the student that I would look into it that evening. I didn’t.
But recently, while doing research for my ongoing “Questions about Ancient Greece and Rome” project, I returned to the question. I haven’t yet finished my reading, but I have discovered some excellent anecdotes, which I think the good people of this sub might enjoy.
I am now fairly sure that the short answer to my neglected student’s question should be: “Yes, but not since the Renaissance.” I say fairly sure, because the fates of imperial corpses can be surprisingly ticklish to trace. A medieval chronicle – to give one colorful example – purports to describe the discovery of the tomb of Maximian (r. 286-305 CE) in the city of Marseille, sometime around the year 1050. The chronicler reports:
“As those who were present told us, the body of Maximian was, amazingly, thoroughly soaked, within and without, with the oil of balsam and perfumes of several other sorts. His body was completely intact, with dark hair, white skin, and a full beard. Next to his head was his goblet of pure gold, filled with balsam. He was lying in a lead casket inside a tub of very white marble, with letters of gold engraved on its top.” (trans. R. Van Dam)
When the bishop of Arles got wind of this discovery, he insisted (since Maximian had been a notorious persecutor of Christians) that the body and sarcophagus be flung into the sea. This was duly done; and the sea – we are assured – churned and boiled when it touched the accursed flesh.
What are we to make of such a story? Maximian really did die in Marseille (Constantine compelled him to hang himself there). And we have reports of other Roman corpses that were preserved for centuries by their unguent coatings. In 1485, for example, the incorrupt body of a Roman noblewoman was discovered in a tomb along the Via Appia. As described by a contemporary diarist:
“The body seems to be covered with a glutinous substance, a mixture of myrrh and other precious ointments, which attract swarms of bees. The said body is intact. The hair is long and thick; the eyelashes, eyes, nose, and ears are spotless, as well as the nails….The teeth are white and perfect; the flesh and the tongue retain their natural color; but if the glutinous substance is washed off, the flesh blackens in less than an hour.”
So the idea of a Roman emperor’s body being preserved by a coating of incense begins to look rather plausible. Leaving Maximian, then, in the “maybe” column, we might briefly review the list of possibilities…
Augustus and the Julio-Claudian emperors are, regrettably, a hopeless case. The great Mausoleum Augustus built on the Campus Martius was sacked and despoiled in the early middle ages; and although we have a few of the marble boxes in which the imperial ashes were deposited, only one urn (a very fine alabaster vase) from the site was ever discovered, and even that was empty.
Trajan’s ashes have long vanished from the base of his column, and there is no record of the fate of the Antonine and Severan emperors buried in the Mausoleum of Hadrian (now Castel S. Angelo). It used to be thought that the tomb of Alexander Severus (r. 222-35) was found at least partly intact during the Renaissance, and that the famous Portland Vase (now in the British Museum) was discovered in the emperor’s sarcophagus. Not anymore.
The emperors of the mid-third century – a generally shiftless lot – are no better, not least because quite a few were condemned by the Senate (and so never received formal burial) or died far from Rome. It has sometimes been claimed that the spectacular Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus held the remains of the short-lived emperor Hostilian (r. July-Nov. 251). But even if it did, we have no record of the burial inside. Etc., etc.
The only recorded discoveries of imperial burials that I have managed to find, in fact, took place in Old St. Peter’s Basilica. The construction of the present St. Peter’s, which happened in fits and starts over the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, required the demolition of the original church, constructed by Constantine and added to many times since. One of the additions to the old basilica was a pair of small rotundas constructed in the early fifth century. Here, unbeknownst to the Renaissance builders, several members of the Theodosian Dynasty had been laid to rest.
The first tomb was uncovered decades before demolition began. In 1458, a priest who wished to be buried in one of the rotundas ordered part of the floor taken up. Soon, the workmen discovered “a tomb of exquisite marble, containing a sarcophagus, and inside of it, a smaller coffin of cypress wood overlaid with silver. This silver, of eleven carats standard, weighed eight hundred and thirty-two pounds. The bodies were wrapped in a golden cloth which yielded sixteen pounds of that precious metal.” The bodies were probably those of Galla Placidia (mother and longtime regent of emperor Valentinian III (r. 425-55) and her young son Theodosius.
In 1519, when the rotunda was demolished, new burials were revealed, including one sarcophagus that contained “the bones of an old Christian prince, wrapped in a pall of gold cloth and surrounded with articles of jewelry. There was a necklace with a cross-shaped pendant, believed to be worth three thousand ducats…” The identity of this body is unknown.
The most spectacular discovery of all took place in 1544, when the sarcophagus of Maria, the wife of Emperor Honorius (r. 395-423) was found. To quote Lanciani’s description:
“The beautiful empress was lying in a coffin of red granite, clothed in a state robe woven of gold. Of the same material were the veil, and the shroud which covered the head and breast. The melting of these materials produced a considerable amount of pure gold, its weight being variously stated at thirty-five or forty pounds…At the right of the body was placed a casket of solid silver, full of goblets and smelling-bottles, cut in rock crystal, agate, and other precious stones. There were thirty in all…There were also four golden vases, one of which was studded with gems. In a second casket of gilded silver, placed at the left side, were found one hundred and fifty objects, — gold rings with engraved stones, earrings, brooches, necklaces, buttons, hair-pins, etc. covered with emeralds, pearls, and sapphires…and an emerald engraved with the bust of Honorius, valued at five hundred ducats.” (Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 203-4)
(If you happen to know Latin, you can read a full account of the discovery online.)
Disgracefully, all of the gold and silver from Maria's tomb was almost immediately melted down. The precious stones were pried from their settings and re-used, and everything else was stolen, dispersed, or given away. In that sad story, you have the reason we know so little about imperial burials.
That’s all, folks. I hope you enjoyed these anecdotes. With any luck, I’ll eventually get around to making a “Questions about Ancient Greece and Rome” video about the answer to which they belong.
In the meantime, if any student from my fall 2017 “Rome and China” seminar happens to be reading this: sorry for the delay. But better late than never...
I'm working towards becoming an archaeologist, and I'd like to bring up a conflict in the field that really gets to me. It's an issue in a few different regions around the world, but here I'm mostly going to talk about the Yucatan Peninsula and historically Mayan regions of Central America. The problem I'm talking about is a truly unfortunate one: antagonism between environmentalism and archaeology.
The Yucatan and nearby areas are perhaps most famous for two things: stunning Mayan ruins and magnificent expanses of natural jungle and beaches. World-famous sites like Tikal, Palenque, and Chichen Itza are surrounded by howler monkeys, toucans, jaguars, and more, and often double as natural preservation areas.
But during these cities' glory days, their surroundings would have looked completely different. One of the reasons so many Mayan sites are now surrounded by jungle is that they are only partially excavated. In fact, many sites are only barely excavated. Tikal's dozens of famous temples and buildings hide the reality that around 85% of the site is still covered by jungle. Hundreds of structures are completely untouched. This is true for many other Mayan sites as well. Additionally, when these cities were thriving, they may have been surrounded with miles of farms, orchards, and other intensively managed sites. Only after their collapse was the jungle able to re-establish itself.
So here's the question: how do we conduct thorough archaeology without completely destroying the environment of the Maya region? Fifteen hundred years ago, the area probably looked nothing like it does today. Instead of miles of jungles, the region was a chessboard of cities, farms, and towns. Jungle areas would have been relegated to mountaintops, borderlands, and inaccessible areas. Fully excavating all of the Mayan sites would destroy large swaths of the current environment, which is an even bigger problem when we consider how threatened natural organisms and areas are by our own, modern habits.
But it might always be the case that one jungle-covered pyramid is hiding a royal tomb, a miraculously preserved codex, or some other groundbreaking archaeological find. I don't have a solution to this conundrum, but I thought I'd post it as a truly interesting and gnarly question to consider. What should we do?
Today on the site I’m currently working on we excavated a saxon child burial. The child was roughly the same age as my own toddler son and it definitely saddened the person who did the bulk of the work on it. Its good for the archaeological record but it is a sad thing to work on. To think over a thousand years ago this child was running around and then one day they were not. The family probably were distraught by this and they buried the child within the cemetery. And now a long time after being buried we are there digging them up so that a housing estate can be built on what was once their settlement and burial ground. It makes me wonder about how future archaeologists will deal with the remains of our life.
In the course of my senior thesis on the Macedonian order of battle I came across a rather interesting argument founded in archaeology. While I was constructing my composite view of Philip’s magnificent victory at Chaeronea over the eleventh-hour alliance of Thebes and Athens, I happened upon an intriguing debate among modern scholars — it concerned the position of the Theban Sacred Band, which was at that time the premier elite military unit of Greece. Famously, it was composed of 150 pairs of lovers who fought with added passion in the sight of their beloved — while this romantic anecdote, though appealing, can be disputed, there is no doubting their prowess at this time. While many fled, the Band fought to the last man against Philip’s veterans and earned the eternal esteem of Greece and Macedon alike. Thebes was perhaps the only Greek state with enough experience of war to give Hellenic freedom a fighting chance.
Therefore the placement of the Sacred Band at Chaeronea is of the utmost importance. Sometime after the battle, perhaps around 316 BCE when Thebes was refounded (Alexander had sacked it brutally) a burial mound and monument was constructed to commemorate the valor of Thebes. Some scholars, such as Minor M. Markle, argued with vigor that this mound’s position reflected where the Sacred Band was positioned during the battle. This theory contends that the Sacred Band was placed on the far right — The Greek alliance had anchored their battle line against a river on that flank, a clever move when facing Philip’s lethal Companion cavalry. It is an interesting theory, and has been used to support wide-ranging conclusions about the composition of the Greek and Macedonian infantry. Philip’s forces famously conducted a false retreat and drew the neophyte Athenian hoplites out of formation—Markle believed that Philip’s foot troops must therefore have not been as heavily armed with the long Sarissa pike due to the rough terrain, and that this reform occurred much later than previously assumed.
Now that I have elaborated on that theory, let me say I disagree with it categorically. The Macedonian phalanx was obviously an invention of Philip’s and occurred early in his reign. There is ample evidence of this in his battles against the Ilyrians of Bardylis and the Phocians under the superlative general Onomarchos. All of this high-flown theory has been extrapolated from the position of one archaeological find — and there is certainly no evidence that the sculptors and artisans who created the monument and tumulus had access to any order of battle document from the Greek coalition. We know so much about the Persian Shahanshah Darius’ forces because written Persian documents described his exact order of battle. There is little to no chance anyone had such specific information about the Theban contingent.
Anyhow, while overall my thesis had revisionist constructions of many of Philip and Alexander’s battles (the Granicus in particular) that is a tale for another day. On the whole, the conventional construction of the battle of Chaeronea is to be preferred in my opinion.
But it is a fascinating example of the influence archaeology, in and of itself, can have on historiographical debate.
I hope you'll all forgive me for taking a rather theoretical approach, but fret not - I'll use plenty of actual examples! The topic I want to address here is what could be called the hermeneutical spiral, and it's what happens when one discipline sheds new light on material in another, which then drives a development in this second discipline. This development, in turn, can then suggest new areas of study for the first discipline, and so on. Basically, both disciplines bounce ideas off each other that can be tested or analysed, and in the best case this leads to innovation in both fields.
The specific case I want to talk about is the hermeneutical spiral between archaeology and biblical studies. Not entirely coincidentally, archaeology arose as a serious discipline around the same time as biblical studies started to take a more secular approach, and in many ways archaeology was a natural companion to biblical scholars, who had for centuries (arguably even millennia!) been looking through the filtered lens of what they would soon find out was a pretty damn unreliable textual tradition. But that's getting ahead of things a little: let's begin round about the beginning - even before 'biblical archaeology' was a proper thing - to the mid-19th century.
In 1845, Austen Henry Layard found himself in Constantinople. He was trained as a civil servant, and had some years prior planned to go to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to work for the British colonial government there. He never made it there, however, and ended up working as a diplomat of sorts at the Ottoman court. Since all Western powers were expanding their influence into the Middle East at the time, and finding the treasures of ancient empires was pretty high on their list, the British government assigned Layard to conduct excavations at Mosul and its surrounding area. He described the experience in great detail and sometimes basically as poetry:
“On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, rose the grass-covered heaps marking the site of ancient habitations. The great tide of civilisation had long since ebbed, leaving these scattered wrecks on the solitary shore. Are those waters to flow again, bearing back the seeds of knowledge and of wealth that they have wafted to the West? We wanderers were seeking what they had left behind, as children gather up the coloured shells on the deserted sands. At my feet there was a busy scene, making more lonely the unbroken solitude which reigned in the vast plain around, where the only thing having life or motion were the shadows of the lofty mounds as they lengthened before the declining sun.” (Layard 1853: 254)
As flowery as his language was, his archaeological approach left much to be desired and, according to Mario Liverani (2016: 32-33), was designed "to obtain the largest possible number of well preserved objects of art at the least possible outlay of time and money." However, his discoveries at the site - ancient Nineveh, one of the capitals of the Neo-Assyrian empire - sparked several other expeditions to Nineveh and elsewhere. Looking back on his Middle Eastern adventures, Layard wrote in 1882:
"Who would have believed it probable or possible, before these discoveries were made, that beneath the heap of earth and rubbish which marked the site of Nineveh, there would be found the history of the wars between Hezekiah and Sennacherib, written at the very time when they took place by Sennacherib himself, and confirming even in minute details the Biblical record?"
And here we get into our first bit of hermeneutical spiral! Sennacherib (king of Assyria 705-681 BCE) has as one of the centrepieces of his Western Campaign a scene from the siege of Lachish (which Layard refers to in the above quote), which for the first time gave external evidence for a historical event narrated in the Hebrew Bible. For biblical studies, this was a massive deal, because this kind of evidence had previously been impossible to find. Suddenly, there was not just a hint of something in the Bible being historically accurate, but a complete and extensive depiction of it from the other side of the story!
Of course, most scholars assumed at this point was that the Bible was historically mostly accurate - and why wouldn't they, there wasn't really any evidence to think otherwise. One of Layard's colleagues, the self-taught wonderkid George Smith (who deserves his own separate post!) translated sections of the Babylonian national epic Enuma elish and the Gilgamesh epic, and called them the Chaldean [i.e. Babylonian] Account of Genesis and Account of the Deluge respectively, in his 1876 publication of the translated cuneiform tablets. So the Bible was still the hermeneutical point of focus - or in other words, all this new evidence was being interpreted through the lens of the Bible, rather than as its own thing. However, the first part of the hermeneutical spiral was complete: archaeological material that was poorly understood on its own terms was interpreted through another discipline.
I want to skip through the next couple decades, except to mention that - particularly in Germany - archaeological discoveries were used in a specifically antisemitic way, most notoriously by Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch in his 1921 book Die Grosse Täuschung ('the great deception'). Delitzsch basically accused Judaism of misrepresenting 'true' religion, and interpreted cuneiform texts as similarly misrepresenting it (though he argued that they were simply mistaken, while Judaism was actively malicious in doing so); only Christianity finally got it 'right' again, or so he thought. The book was (rightly) widely denounced in academic circles, but was certainly complicit in the rising antisemitism of interbellum Germany. In some ways, his book was also a continuation of the hermeneutic spiral, although Delitzsch had to misrepresent his evidence to do so.
But let's pick up the archaeology again with the excavations of Jericho (another major site in biblical history) by John Garstang, between 1930-36. The city is mentioned in the book of Joshua as an impenetrable city with enormous walls, which resists the Israelites' conquest of Canaan (promised to them by Yahweh as their rightful homeland) until the walls miraculously fall down by Joshua leading a group around the walls and blasting their trumpets. 60 years onward from Layard and Smith's work, Garstang had the benefit of a methodologically much better developed discipline, and could rely on a vastly improved theoretical background at this point that meant archaeological practice had become much more rigorous, better-documented, and responsible in its approach. All this meant that archaeology could now be taken much more seriously, and Garstang concludes from his excavations (uncovering, among other things, destroyed city walls) that the biblical account was basically accurate. He mentions nothing about the trumpets, but instead accords it a naturalistic explanation: an earthquake must've happened that knocked down the walls at the right time. He writes that
the destruction of the Fourth City corresponds in all material particulars with the Biblical narrative of the Fall of Jericho before the Israelites under Joshua. (Garstang 1948:142)
What's interesting is that he effectively took this to mean that the rest of biblical history must then also have been accurate, and came up with similar explanations for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), Moses drawing water from a rock (Numbers 20), and Elijah going up to heaven in a flaming chariot (2 Kings 2) - not because he could show any evidence for it, but because he apparently inferred what he thought was reasonable circumstantial evidence from the archaeological record of a completely unrelated story (Garstang 1948: 164).
But enter one of the greatest archaeologists of the 20th century: Kathleen Kenyon, loved and feared by her colleagues for her demanding style of work, and with Mortimer Wheeler inventor of a totally new approach to excavation: stratigraphic analysis (also known as the Kenyon-Wheeler Method). She reviewed Garstang's data on his own request, and found it lacking; time to dig up Jericho all over again. What set Kenyon apart from Garstang was that in her survey report she was completely disinterested in the Bible. In fact, in her 1960 report she writes,
To me it seems to be a waste of time to attempt to produce a chronology covering a period of several hundred years by adding up the different spans of forty or thirty years mentioned in the Bible. (Kenyon 1960:208)
At the same time, she was extremely good at selling her work to the press:
No, she had not yet found walls from Joshua’s time. She did find a small jug—‘perhaps abandoned when the housewife fled before the approaching Israelites.’ This was not demonstrably false, not demonstrably true. It was a masterful ‘perhaps’; perhaps the Old Testament account would be confirmed.” (McKinney for vision.org)
In the end, her conclusion was actually the opposite: Jericho's walls weren't destroyed during Joshua's invasion - there weren't any walls at that time at all, and they'd been knocked down a couple centuries earlier! And although her excavations continue to be reinterpreted by current archaeologists, some of whom disagree with her conclusions, in many ways her conclusion of a negative drove the next part of the hermeneutical spiral (remember that?).
With Kenyon's interpretation of the material accepted (and subsequently corroborated in other excavations of cities mentioned in the book of Joshua), biblical scholars were spurred to respond, leading to extensive debates. The Copenhagen School, representing what's known as 'biblical minimalism', even holds that basically nothing in the Bible is historically reliable, and is a direct result of this discussion.
I can write another post about that if there's interest, but I'm now out of space!
Archaeology isn't all high drama, daring escapes, and crazy stories. It's usually really, really boring fascinating research, punctuated by hours and hours of writing. Except, that is, when you're a young anthopology_nerd on their first archaeology field season. Often in this sub we share dramatic stories from the past. This is a story about the adventures we sometimes encounter bringing that history to light.
Nearly twenty years ago the lovely country of Bolivia, and more specifically for this story the highlands around La Paz, were swept up in what is now known as the Bolivian Gas Conflict. The conflict centered around the country's use of natural gas reserves, with especially passionate rhetoric from poorer indigenous communities arguing for the wealth to be shared/kept in the country instead of only benefiting the rich. La Paz sits in a valley at 12,000 feet above sea level. The airport in El Alto is on the high altiplano above the valley (roughly 13,600 feet in elevation). Turns out if you're a poor Bolivian upset at your government, but lack power to make your voice heard, one of the best ways to force action is to block the roads out of La Paz, including the road to the airport, and cut off the administrative capital.
Now, enter a bright-eyed student eager for their first archaeology experience. My knowledge of Spanish was minimal. My grasp of Bolivian politics abysmal. My professor's oversight and planning questionable.
We flew into El Alto during a lull in the conflict, and managed to make it down to La Paz. The plan was to secure the needed documentation/permissions, and acclimate to the altitude for a few days, before heading up near Lake Titicaca to our archaeology site; a satellite site for a pre-Inca civilization called Tiwanaku. Unfortunately, nothing went according to plan. The riots intensified, the roads were blocked, and nearly every day brought a new protest along the streets of La Paz. We were stuck in La Paz for two weeks, dodging protesters and learning to love empanadas, when, unfortunately the Bolivian army fired into the crowd, killing several demonstrators. Both sides called a truce for 24 hours.
Remember when I said my Spanish was horrible and I had no understanding of Bolivian politics? Yeah, I pieced all this together after. At the time all I knew was two weeks of protests featuring dynamite at random intervals, then our professor running into our rented apartment and yelling for us to grab all our gear, we have five minutes to leave. We had no idea what was going on, my prof took the next combi out so he could start securing the site, and my poor Spanish skills meant I couldn't ask questions of my fellow passengers.
Three of us shovel bums boarded one of the first combis out of La Paz and head out to the altiplano through El Alto. The streets were chaos. On the road we passed huge roadblocks, burning tires, piles of broken glass, boulders, and various debris with just enough room for a small car to make it through. The altiplano is pretty barren between villages, and we could see the smoke from burning tires/roadblocks surrounding the city. Given the poor roads the drive out of the city took most of the day, and we made it to a hotel before the protests resumed that night.
Now we're stranded on the altiplano, miles from our profs at our site. We're also higher in elevation, and our site is ten miles away over some small mountains. My prof somehow managed through the chaos to arrange for an absolutely delightful Aymara man named Mario to guide us over the mountains to the site. He helped us load up the mules with the archaeology gear and we started hiking at dawn.
Elevation effects everyone differently. After two weeks at 12,000 feet I could sleep comfortably, and walk for a couple hours without issue. Turns out even a little more elevation gain leaves me gasping for air with a raging altitude headache. And we had mini-mountains to cross. I can't tell you much about that hike to our dig site. At the top we were taking three steps, stopping to breathe, then taking another three steps. Mario tried to lift our spirits by playing his pan flute. That's right. We're almost dead and Mario has enough stamina to hike, guide mules, and play his flute at the same time. Mario freaking rocked. I know we passed some Inca ruins at some point. I know I fell on the descent and almost tumbled down the cliff. I know I thought a nap would be good, but my functioning brain cells decided I should keep walking. That's about it. We finally stumbled into town, footsore and dehydrated, sometime after dark and reunite with our profs.
For the next several weeks we started excavating test pits, all the while massive protests continued around the country, blocking the roads as well as food shipments in and out of town. As a precaution we always carried our passports and some running money on our person, prepared to flee to a safe house my prof arranged if the protests turned violent in our area. I learned the basics of archaeology including how to excavate skeletal remains, and Mario and I mapped the site while surrounded by the austere beauty of the Bolivian altiplano. We celebrated the town's anniversary with our friends by dancing all night, in costume, and consuming too much of the local moonshine. By the end of the field season the riots died down and we returned to La Paz without issue, though the conflict in Bolivia would continue for several years. The maps from that field season helped direct further excavations at the site, which in turn helped us understand the formation of early cities on the altiplano long before the Inca rose to power.
I'm not sure this is what you're looking for... but it's a funny story about being on a brand new career path. Feel free to delete it if it's not with theme of the post.
I am a Cultural Resource Management archaeologist in the United States and this is the story of how I found my first projectile point as a professional.
We were recording a huge lithic (chipped stone) surface scatter, it was ~1km long and the entire width of our survey corridor (we were not allowed to leave the survey boundary). We were nearing the end of the day and we needed a representative sample of the various flakes, scrapers, cores, etc... to photograph (this was a no collection survey, everything had to be left on the property when we left). We hadn't found anything that was diagnostic of any certain time period, which was somewhat disappointing after all the work we had put in. There was a pretty gnarly storm moving in and we needed to bail quickly to make it back to our truck before lightning got too close so the crew lead told us to drop our packs and scatter to grab some stuff to photograph. We all jog off and I'm just frantically grabbing any piece of chert I see and throwing it in a bag without close inspection... we get back together and I pull a handful of ugly flakes and cores out of my pocket and hold them out to her and sure enough... diagnostic projectile point. She was semi-mad at me for not knowing where it came from (normally we would have dropped a GPS point on anything diagnostic of a certain time period).
And that's how I found my first projectile point as a professional. I've gotten better, I promise.
I am not an archaeologist, but wanted to be one as kid and always stayed interested, took also part in some excavations throughout my life an I am still interested. I love to browse through LIDAR data which is provided (though in low quality) for every citizen in my state in Germany and trying to identify structures. So, professionals told me that LIDAR works better in areas with forests - I am just interested, why is that? There statement is true as far as I can see when I browse over surface areas. But there is one area - a former airstrip which was bombed heavily in late 1944 - where I can clearly see the craters of the bombs in the LIDAR picture which you won't notice when you are standing at the place and just look over the plain.
Why can't I usually see old structures under fields/meadows and so on, which are on the other hand sometimes visible with air photography or by geomagnetic screening?
Why do I see the aforementioned bomb craters despite they are not covered by wood and not visible when I walk through the area? Do they have more impact than walls/ditches or so, beneath the surface?
Thanks for all the answers, I just want a better understanding of the technics behind it.
If you live in the UK, you can volunteer as part of an archaeology project in South Wales.
It's called the Lost City of Trellech and its near New Port. Trellech was the largest mediaeval city in Wales that had evaded archaeologists for over 20 years.
The 'scandql' if you can call it that came with its discovery. It was discovered by an archaeology graduate, who purchased the land when the Welsh Archaeological Society declined to investigate. There was quite the scandal when the site was revealed to actually be Trellech, the Archaeological Society tried to stick to their guns and say that mediaeval Trellech was under the modern town - because a famous archaeologist said so - even though they had been excavations for 20 years with no results. They ended up getting raked through the press and its been quite the sore spot ever since.
It's a fantastic site and we welcome visitors every summer for the summer dig (and also for archeology experience days).
We are currently building a new website so some of the info may be out of date.
I was going to post an awesome story about excavating mass graves and how they aid in my research, but after an incredibly rough day, I'm going to share my first funded project, rather than work from my time with a BLM or F&W project. (I could talk about getting stuck in a grave or falling in a tomb as well?)
My project involved the historical and archaeological site known as Caherconnell outside of Kilfenora, Ireland. I was able to utilize medieval texts and artifacts to help create a further understanding of the site and Gaelic culture. Working with National University Ireland: Galway I assisted in an archaeological excavation that added context to the already impressive archives. At the end of my two weeks, I had identified 673 bones, excavated as a team, and allowed for the context layer to be confidently identified as an area of strong activity — a kitchen from the 11th century. This was a dig that I had previously been on (it's a field school) but this time I was given more freedom and liberties to study the specifics surrounding a zooarch project I was working on. I actually found evidence of deer being present, which is super exciting for that region, deer were not common, and no deer bones had been found until then.
Is that a Mayan temple
Welcome to the eleventh installment of our Summer 2019 Floating Features and Flair Drive.
Today’s theme is Archaeology, and we want to see everyone share history that fits that theme however they might interpret it. Share stories, whether happy, sad, funny, moving; Share something interesting or profound that you just read; Share what you are currently working on in your research. It is all welcome!
Floating Features are intended to allow users to contribute their own original work. If you are interested in reading recommendations, please consult our booklist, or else limit them to follow-up questions to posted content. Similarly, please do not post top-level questions. This is not an AMA with panelists standing by to respond. Such questions ought to be submitted as normal questions in the subreddit.
As is the case with previous Floating Features, there is relaxed moderation here to allow more scope for speculation and general chat than there would be in a usual thread! But with that in mind, we of course expect that anyone who wishes to contribute will do so politely and in good faith.
Please be sure to mark your calendars for the full series, which you can find listed here. Next up on Sunday, September 15th is the final installment of the series, with the History of Europe. Don't forget to add it to your calendar!
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