Unruly History in the News #14
Vikings traveled with their pets, a Rosetta Stone for the 21st century, and a list of 'recently unearthed' so long it might make you wonder if anything in the world is still buried.
Welcome back to another week of history acting wild in the news. Last week there was so much that a lot of these are actually just leftovers from that, but there’s some new stuff in here too. Meanwhile, I have a cold but book edits are still chugging along. How are you all doing? Good weeks all around, I hope? Tell me about your week:
Also this past week I published another bonus episode—a deeper look at poisoning and poisoners during the Italian Renaissance. Coming up in a few days will be the third (and final!) installment of the story of Catherine de Medici, and I’m excited to share that with you all. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t yet.) You can still join the chat about Catherine here.
This week, in history acting unruly…
Dance on the Beach (1906) by Edvard Munch was hidden in a Norwegian forest to protect it from the Nazis, who had deemed Munch’s work “degenerate.” It’s going up for auction for the first time in at least 80 years.
A once-lost Canaanite language has been decoded thanks to a couple of clay tablets from Iraq. Big Rosetta Stone for the 21st-century vibes! The tablets were found sometime in the 1980s but languished in a US institution until 2016. Research and translations took 6 years. Now the question of what to do with the tablets is being raised.
In exciting reappearances:
A nearly 5000-year-old tavern, still stocked with food, was found in Lagash, Iraq. It is “complete with benches, a type of ancient clay refrigerator called a zeer,’ an oven, and storage containers, some of which still had food.”
A rare heart-shaped pendant celebrating the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was discovered in the Midlands. It is in remarkably good condition.
The ruins of Skepsis, an ancient Greek city, have reappeared in Turkey following a disastrous drought that has caused water levels of the Bayramiç Dam to recede. A church and bathhouse are clearly visible. It doesn’t seem like excavations are planned, but seeing the bathhouse again, which has very unique decorative elements marking it as clearly Byzantine, is a (very thin) silver lining in the drought.
Some more details about The Keuka, a floating speakeasy, which I mentioned last week. Did Al Capone have something to do with it? Maybe.
During excavations of a fourth-century tomb in Japan’s Nara Prefecture, researchers discovered a massive, seven-foot dāko iron sword and a “magical” bronze mirror shaped like a shield. They’re calling it “unprecedented and exciting.”
A statue of a Hercules-like figure was just found in a Roman sewer.
And a cache of gemstones was just found in a Roman bathhouse drain.
A 52-foot-long papyrus scroll of the Book of the Dead was just discovered at Saqqara.
Also found at Saqqara was an “elaborate” workshop for embalming the dead. A recent publication tells us what was still in the jars that had been left behind.
Speaking of Egypt, several Roman structures with pigeon towers were just uncovered in Luxor, Egypt. This is the "first complete residential city" from the Roman Empire era found in east Luxor. Pigeon towers were where pigeons were raised for meat.
One more for Egypt: Mummies covered in gold are rare, and a new one was just found—the oldest one yet.
The Rosetta Stone mentioned a mysterious “Great Revolt” that occurred from 207 BCE to 184 BCE, but the actual site has only just been discovered.
The oldest human remains to be found in England were uncovered by a local archaeologist in Cumbria. Several graves were found together, and the oldest one is roughly 5,500 years old.
Evidence of a previously unknown British Civil War battle was uncovered in central England, near Birmingham.
A 3,600-year-old hoard of silver may contain one of the earliest examples of silver currency—and it’s hundreds of years older than archaeologists expected.
Recently completed CT scans of the mummy known as The Golden Boy revealed 49 hidden amulets in and on his body. Among them was a golden scarab beetle engraved with passages from the book of the dead and a gold cap on his tongue.
Image credit: S.N. Saleem, S.A. Seddik, M. El-Halwagy. Source. Someone took a closer look at a “replica sword” at the Field Museum in Chicago and discovered…oops, that baby’s authentic. It’s 3,000 years old and might have been used in real battles.
Have we been misunderstanding the Bible’s ban on tattoos all along?
Analysis of cremated bones from a Viking cemetery in England reveals that Vikings sailed with their pets. Cue ‘awwwww’s in 3, 2, 1….
We now know that Neanderthals hunted and ate massive elephants. Just one creature would have fed hundreds of people.
