70,000 Year-Old African Settlement Unearthed

During ongoing excavations in northern Sudan, Polish archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology in Poznań, have discovered the remains of a settlement estimated to 70,000 years old. This find, according to the researchers, seems to contradict the previously held belief that the construction of permanent structures was associated with the so-called Great Exodus from Africa and occupation of the colder regions of Europe and Asia.

The site known as Affad 23, is currently the only one recorded in the Nile Valley which shows that early Homo sapiens built sizeable permanent structures, and had adapted well to the wetland environment.

This new evidence points to a much more advanced level of human development and adaptation in Africa during the Middle Palaeolithic.

Locating the “village”

“Discoveries in Affad are unique for the Middle Palaeolithic. Last season, we came across a few traces of light wooden structures. However, during the current research we were able to precisely locate the village and identify additional utility areas: a large flint workshop, and a space for cutting hunted animal carcasses, located at a distance” – explained project director Dr. Marta Osypińska.

The researchers are also working on a list of animal species that these early humans hunted. Despite the relatively simple flint tools produced using the Levallois technique, these humans were able to hunt both large, dangerous mammals such as hippos, elephants and buffalo, as well as small, nimble monkeys and cane rats (large rodents that inhabited the wetlands).

Palaeolithic hunters

This year, the researchers intended to precisely date the time period in which the Palaeolithic hunters lived here, using optically stimulated luminescence.

“At this stage we know that the Middle Palaeolithic settlement episode in Affad occurred at the end of the wet period, as indicated by environmental data, including the list of hunted animal species. But in the distant past of the land such ecological conditions occurred at least twice” about 75 millennia and about 25 millennia ago. Determining the time when people inhabited the river bank near today’s Affad is the most important objective of our project “- said prehistory expert Piotr Osypiński.

The Polish team is working with scientists from Oxford Brookes University, who are helping to analyse the geological history of the area. The results will help determine climatic and environmental conditions that prevailed in the Central Nile Valley during the late Pleistocene and hope to identify factors that contributed to the excellent state of preservation at the Affad 23 site.
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References:

Past Horizons. 2014. “70,000 Year-Old African Settlement Unearthed”. Past Horizons. Posted: July 20, 2014. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/07/2014/70000-year-old-african-settlement-unearthed

Christian Ink: Mummy's 1,300-Year-Old Thigh Tattoo Revealed

A Christian tattoo has been discovered high on the inner thigh of a mummified Sudanese woman. New images released by the British Museum show the ancient ink, which dates back to 1,300 years ago.

The well-preserved corpse was discovered during a recent archaeological excavation in northern Sudan along the banks of the Nile River. CT scans allowed researchers to peek under the woman's skin and look at her bones, while infrared imaging showed her faint thigh tattoo more clearly.

Researchers at the British Museum have interpreted the tattoo as a monogram for the archangel Michael, stacking the ancient Greek letters spelling Michael (M-I-X-A-H-A), The Telegraph reported. Archaeologists have previously found the symbol emblazoned on church mosaics and artifacts, but never before on human flesh.

Curator Daniel Antoine told the paper that the ancient body art is the first evidence of a tattoo from this period, calling it a "very rare find."

Antoine doesn't know for sure what purpose the tattoo would have served, but speculated it might have been intended to protect the woman, The Telegraph reported.

The mummy is set to go on display at the British Museum in London in May as part of an exhibition called "Ancient Lives: New Discoveries."

The mummy is hardly the first, or even the oldest, to bear tattoos. It was common to get inked in many cultures around the world; mummies found in places like Peru, Egypt and the Philippines attest to a long and diverse history of body art.

At 5,300 years old, Ötzi the Iceman is Europe's oldest mummy and he may also hold the distinction of having the world's oldest surviving tattoos. The mummy was found frozen in the Alps in 1991 and he has several tattoos, mostly in the form of small lines and crosses, etched in soot around his joints. The markings are suspected to have been less decorative than therapeutic, since Ötzi is thought to have suffered from joint pain before he died.

Another notable frozen mummy discovered in the 1990s had tattoos, too. The 2,500-year-old body of a woman in her late 20s was found in 1993 in the permafrost of the Ukok Plateau in southwestern Siberia. She was tattooed with intricate animal motifs, abstract shapes and mythological creatures such as a deer with a griffon's head, according to The Siberian Times. Other mummies of the Siberian Pazyryk culture are inked with similar designs and animals like tigers, leopards and elk.
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References:

Gannon, Megan. 2014. “Christian Ink: Mummy's 1,300-Year-Old Thigh Tattoo Revealed”. Live Science. Posted: March 26, 2014. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/44403-christian-mummy-thigh-tattoo.html

35 Ancient Pyramids Discovered in Sudan Necropolis

At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan.

Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated. In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into  roughly 5,381 square feet (500 square meters), or  slightly larger than an NBA basketball court.

They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire. The desire of the kingdom's people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture.

At Sedeinga, researchers say, pyramid building continued for centuries. "The density of the pyramids is huge," said researcher Vincent Francigny, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in an interview with LiveScience. "Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis."

The biggest pyramids they discovered are about 22 feet (7 meters) wide at their base with the smallest example, likely constructed for the burial of a child, being only 30 inches (750 millimeters) long. The tops of the pyramids are not attached, as the passage of time and the presence of a camel caravan route resulted in damage to the monuments. Francigny said that the tops would have been decorated with a capstone depicting either a bird or a lotus flower on top of a solar orb.

The building continued until, eventually, they ran out of room to build pyramids. "They reached a point where it was so filled with people and graves that they had to reuse the oldest one," Francigny said.

Francigny is excavation director of the French Archaeological Mission to Sedeinga, the team that made the discoveries. He and team leader Claude Rilly published an article detailing the results of their 2011 field season in the most recent edition of the journal Sudan and Nubia.

The inner circle

Among the discoveries were several pyramids designed with an inner cupola (circular structure) connected to the pyramid corners through cross-braces. Rilly and Francigny noted in their paper that the pyramid design resembles a "French Formal Garden."

Only one pyramid, outside of Sedeinga, is known to have been constructed this way, and it's a mystery why the people of Sedeinga were fond of the design. It "did not add either to the solidity or to the external aspect [appearance] of the monument," Rilly and Francigny write.

A discovery made in 2012 may provide a clue, Francigny said in the interview. "What we found this year is very intriguing," he said. "A grave of a child and it was covered by only a kind of circle, almost complete, of brick." It's possible, he said, that when pyramid building came into fashion at Sedeinga it was combined with a local circle-building tradition called tumulus construction, resulting in pyramids with circles within them.

An offering for grandma?

The graves beside the pyramids had largely been plundered, possibly in antiquity, by the time archaeologists excavated them. Researchers did find skeletal remains and, in some cases, artifacts.

One of the most interesting new finds was an offering table found by the remains of a pyramid. . It appears to depict the goddess Isis and the jackal-headed god Anubis and includes an inscription, written in Meroitic language, dedicated to a woman named "Aba-la," which may be a nickname for "grandmother," Rilly writes.

It reads in translation:

Oh Isis! Oh Osiris!
It is Aba-la.
Make her drink plentiful water;
Make her eat plentiful bread;
Make her be served a good meal.

The offering table with inscription was a final send-off for a woman, possibly a grandmother, given a pyramid burial nearly 2,000 years ago.

See 13 pictures of the site here.
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References:

Jarus, Owen. 2013. “35 Ancient Pyramids Discovered in Sudan Necropolis”. Live Science. Posted: February 6, 2013. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/26903-35-ancient-pyramids-sudan.html

Long Pilgrimages Revealed in Ancient Sudan Art

Excavations of a series of medieval churches in central Sudan have revealed a treasure trove of art, including a European-influenced work, along with evidence of journeys undertaken by travelers from western Europe that were equivalent to the distance between New York City and the Grand Canyon.

A visit by a Catalonian man named Benesec is recorded in one of the churches, along with visits from other pilgrims of the Middle Ages, according to lead researcher Bogdan Zurawski of the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The discoveries were made at Banganarti and Selib, two sites along the Nile that were part of Makuria, a Christian kingdom ruled by a dynasty of kings throughout the Middle Ages.

The art there tells stories of kings, saints, pilgrims and even a female demon, said Zurawski, who presented his findings recently at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Inside medieval churches

Zurawski said the most recent of the churches uncovered in Banganarti, built nearly 1,000 years ago, is unique. "It has no parallel in Nubia and elsewhere," he said. [See images of Banganarti church discoveries]

The church contains 18 square rooms, two staircases and, at its center, a domed area that probably contained holy relics. The team believes the building was dedicated to the archangel Raphael and was used for healing rituals. "The multitude of inscriptions addressed to this archangel are more than suggestive" that the church was dedicated to him, Zurawski said.

Beneath this building lies a structure, built about 300 years earlier, which also appears to have been dedicated to Raphael. This lower church, as the archaeologists refer to it, contains a ninth-century mural depicting "the Harrowing of Hell," which shows Jesus visiting the underworld to rescue the firstborn. [See images of the lower church]

A Catalonian journey

The team uncovered numerous inscriptions at the two sites, many left by pilgrims visiting the churches in hopes of being healed.

One of the inscriptions at Banganartiis written in Catalonian and appears to have been inscribed sometime in the 13th or 14th century by the man named Benesec. It reads: "When Benesec came to pay homage to Raphael."

Zurawski told LiveScience that "Benesec" was a very popular name in 13th- and 14th-century southern France. This particular Benesec had probably traveled some 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from southern France or northern Spain. The journey took him east across the Mediterranean Sea and far up the Nile into the interior of Africa.

The inscription and a Catalonian playing card found downriver by another team, which may or may not have been left by Benesec, were the only traces found of these visitors from Europe.

Zurawski said Benesec may have been a trader who, along with other Catalonians, received permission from the Mamluk rulers of Egypt to pass through their territory. "The Catalonians were granted trade privileges, trade rights, to exchange goods and to trade with Egypt, and apparently they also came to Nubia," he said.

Krzysztof Grzymski, a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, said at the symposium that evidence of contact between central Sudan and the Mediterranean world goes back to antiquity. At the site of Meroë, which reached its peak around 2,000 years ago, Grzymski said, he studied the sculpture of a head that has Greek traits. "This head is clearly Hellenistic or Hellenized, and yet it certainly was made by local artists from Meroë."

The Harrowing of Hell

The team uncovered numerous works of art at Banganarti, among them the ninth-century painting of "the Harrowing of Hell."

"The masterpiece of lower-church painting, decoration, is this 'Harrowing of Hell'; it is absolutely unusual," said Zurawski. It shows "Jesus Christ just descended to hell to trample Hades, liberating the firstborn, who are shown naked. Also, the common dead are shown naked."

The dead are also shown in anguish. "The common dead [are] screaming, crying with outstretched fingers," said Zurawski. He said that the emotion of the dead, and the depiction of them and the firstborn being naked, were very odd.

"That is purely a European way of inscribing the Harrowing of Hell," he said. "In Byzantine tradition, the firstborn and the dead in the harrowing scene are shown in stiff hieratic postures, totally clothed."

King David … of Nubia

There are many other features of art and architecture at these two holy sites.

Banganarti contains several images of kings, most of them anonymous because of the lack of an accompanying inscription.

However, one exception shows a 13th-century ruler known as King David, possibly named after the biblical figure. An inscription, found nearby, reads: "O God of Michael [or "O Saint Michael"], cause Arouase to live through the savior of King David." Arouase appears to be a reference to a person.

Another work of art is an image of St. Damianos, a third-century physician who, with his brother Cosmas, practiced in Cilicia in southeastern Turkey. They were known asanargyroi, doctors who treated patients for free. During a series of Christian persecutions brought about by the Roman Emperor Diocletian, they were rounded up, tortured and beheaded.

Zurawski said the saint appears to have been held in particularly high regard at this site. For instance, one inscription mentions a wealthy person named Teita who came to Banganarti to mark Damianos' life.

The church image of Damianos' brother did not survive.

A female demon

The artwork is rich in both religious and mythological lore. For instance, at the same church the team discovered a depiction of Sideros, a female demon, naked and bound up while being trampled by St. Abbakyros, a medical saint, on a horse.

Sideros in medieval mythology was a demon that preyed on women during childbirth.

Another scene at Banganarti depicts the legend of a third-century Roman soldiernamed Mercurius who converted to Christianity and was executed for it.

"The Passio recounts that Mercurius lived under the emperors Decius and Valerian. ... He saw in a vision an angel who presented him with a sword, promising him victory and telling him not to forget his God," writes Christopher Walker in the book "The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition" (Ashgate publishing, 2003). (Passio is a Latin word for passion.)

When he refused the emperor's invitation to make an offering to Artemis, Mercurius refused, professing his new faith. He was tortured and killed.

According to the picture discovered at Banganarti, Mercurius reappeared as a sort of spirit almost 100 years later, after Christianity had been declared legal throughout the Roman Empire.

At the time Rome had an emperor, Julian, who made offerings to the old Roman gods instead of observing Christian rites. The emperor was campaigning in the Middle East against the Persians when, according to legend, Mercurius appeared and stabbed him with a spear, killing him.

"On the south wall [at Banganarti there is] a very interesting mural representing Saint Merkurios killing Emperor Julian the Apostate," said Zurawski. An image of the praying Virgin Mary is also shown in the scene.

A blind visitor

Another interesting image is that of an apparently blind individual who visited Banganarti in hopes of a cure, possibly because the church was dedicated to the archangel known to be a patron of the blind.

"One of the ophthalmological patients who came to Banganarti with eye problems was not Christian but was Muslim," Zurawski said.

His name was written as "Deif Ali," Arabic for "Ali the guest." In a drawing of him in the church, he is shown with a walking stick and what looks like a bag. He wears a kilt-like dress and appears to be struggling to get his footing right. “His blindness is shown in the way he was painted,” said Zurawski.

Selib

A few miles to the east of Banganarti is Selib, which holds four churches, built one on top of the other. They date from the sixth century, a time when people in Nubia were beginning to convert to Christianity, and the buildings were in use throughout the Middle Ages. [See images of medieval church Selib]

There are also remains of Meroitic columns and reliefs dating to around 2,000 years ago, when the city of Meroë was the center of an empire that stretched from southern Egypt to central Sudan.

Work at the site began in 2008 and resumed, after a brief hiatus, in 2010. Much remains to be done, but the team already has unearthed some interesting finds, among them a baptistery dating back nearly 1,500 years.

The team also found an inscription that indicates that one of the churches was built by a seventh-century king named Zacharias. It reads, "Zacharias basileus Mena hagios," which means that the king dedicated the church to St. Mena, a third-century Egyptian hermit.

Nearby, the team encountered an intriguing mystery. The archaeologists excavated a well and found the bottom to be beautifully decorated.

"At the depth of 5 meters, the regular bond of brick, the so-called English bond, is interrupted," said Zurawski during his museum lecture. In place "a zig-zag pattern made with oven-fired bricks" appears.

"There is no technical, structural reason for such a changing of the pattern of the brick. The only reason is aesthetical, but what aesthetics stand for in a well at the depth of five meters, I cannot ascertain," he said.

Only a few miles east of Banganarti, the inhabitants apparently decided that even the bottom of a well should be beautiful.
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References:

Jarus, Owen. 2011. "Long Pilgrimages Revealed in Ancient Sudan Art". Live Science. Posted: November 3, 2011. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/16854-sudan-yields-medieval-art-signs-long-pilgrimages.html