Cost-cutting in academia is currently endangering the future of the last remaining archaeology programmes in #Leipzig and #Saxony as a whole. So students started a petition: https://chng.it/gTHf8fgbJT
@ladyofvix@archaeodons There's an object in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, a mezuzah found in Austria that antedates Christianity by several hundred years. Maybe the Germans would rather stuff like that not be found. They might have to give their own land back...
"Against the backdrop of the threat of war with Persia and an imminent Spartan invasion which resulted in the overthrow of Hippias (510 BCE), it is considered that a political transition occurred because Greece was both geologically and politically disposed to adopt this labour-intensive silver technology which helped to initiate, fund and protect the radical social experiment that became known as Classical Greece."
"In particular, I make a response to Wood’s suggestion in Archaeometry (2022, first view, ‘Other ways to examine the finances behind the birth of Classical Greece’) that the end of the production of lead votive figurines in Sparta might have been caused by Athenian restrictions to Laurion lead exports, drawing on new LIA of the Spartan lead votives and wider considerations concerning the trade, cost and volume of lead in the 7th to 5th century bce Mediterranean."
Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future.
@mutinyc Yeah, "More than one kind of Anarchist". The problem with Anarchism is this: Nobody can actually tell you what it is! "Without Leaders" is a wonderful concept, because it means that as nobody makes decisions, nobody is to blame when things go wrong!
Ah well, another Mute. @Grizzlysgrowls@appassionato@bookstodon
A fogou is an Iron Age underground passageway built within a settlement. These were likely used for food storage or as a place of refuge during raids (or maybe for ritual purposes). Fogous are only found in Cornwall and their name derives from the Cornish word for ‘cave’. This fogou is situated in the ancient settlement of Carn Euny.
Listen up, archaeokids. Lets say you first excavate context A, writing "A" on all the find baggies. Then you kind of think that you've gone into a new context, so you start calling it context B and writing "B" on the baggies. Then you decide that B is actually not different enough from A to be treated usefully as a separate entity. This is completely OK. Just put in the field notes that A=B. 1/2
What is NOT OK is to re-use the label "B" for the completely different shit that is sitting under context A/B! NEVER RE-USE A CONTEXT IDENTIFIER FOR SOME OTHER SHIT!!! /Signed, the guy who is writing up the report and organising the finds. 2/2
For #RomanSiteSaturday the late Roman tomb of Silistra/Bulgaria. Dating around 350 AD, the tomb is richly decorated with fresoes showing not only the tomb's owner and his wife but also their servants/slaves carrying garments and other items.
An Egyptian Amarna-era alabaster perfume bottle in the shape of a hes-vase (libation vessel), inlaid with a depiction of an Amarna princess standing on a blue lotus blossom. The blue lotus opens anew every morning with the sun. For an ancient Egyptian, the child and the flower would have been a powerful image of rebirth and rejuvenation.
The image on the side is a marvel of lapidary skill, consisting of carnelian, obsidian, gold, and colored glass inlay.
"New Evidence That Ancient Footprints Push Back Human Arrival in North America
Following up a on study in 2021 of tracks found in New Mexico, researchers used more methods to bolster the claim that the tracks are up to 23,000 years old."
The Roman-era marble figure on the left, below, was recently found in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. Note the red modius-style hats! Turkish officials have identified it as the 'Three Graces', but ... they all face forward, each carrying two torches. That's three-bodied Hekate's iconography. #archaeology 🤔
Thoughts? Why identify the figures as the Graces instead of Hekate?