05-06 AOUT 2014 NEWS: Islande - Izmir - Stirling - Gülpınar - Heraion Teikhos - Ipplepen -

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ISLANDESkriduklaustur - The diet in Icelandic monasteries and convents is likely to have been rather diverse, as indicated in recent research carried out by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) and National Museum of Iceland. Fractions of pottery from Skriðuklaustur and Kirkjubæjarklaustur are being studied and the first results indicate that they contained fish, meat from mammals and also nuts, seeds or berries, Morgunblaðið reports. A convent and monastery was operated at Skriðuklaustur in East Iceland in the 15th and 16th centuries, while Kirkjubæjarklaustur in South Iceland was the site of a convent in operation from the 12th century until the Reformation in 1550.

http://icelandreview.com/news/2014/08/06/archaeology-diverse-diet-icelandic-cloisters

TURQUIEN 70001 1 Izmir - Excavations are set to restart on İzmir’s Temple of Artemis, one of the most important monumental structures of the ancient age and widely considered one of the seven wonders of the world.  The head of the excavations in the ancient city of Ephesus, Professor Sabine Ladstatter, said the excavations would focus on four areas in the ancient city and that works would start on the temple, as well as a Turkish bath and the Çukuriçi tumulus, a settlement area at the southern part of the Virgin Mary Church. The most recent excavations were made at the Temple of Artemis 20 years ago, said the professor. It will be a very important and exciting excavation for us. We hope that we will find data that will be able to confirm our hypotheses. We will seek answer to questions like was there a church in the area of the Temple of Artemis?” said Ladstaetter, adding that making excavations was not easy in the temple area because of the high water table.The former head of archaeology at the Ephesus Museum, Cengiz İçten, said the temple excavations had been sought for a long time and that significant artifacts had been unearthed during the excavations.  He said the temple was completed in 550 B.C. and was a huge and very impressive structure that was constructed completely from marble.  It is an 18-meter-high temple built on huge columns on an area the size of a football field. This structure was one of the magnificent structures in this era. But through time, this temple lost its [grandeur]. It is believed that the columns of the temple were used in the construction of other structures.” 
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/excavations-restart-on-ancient-wonder-.aspx?pageID=238&nid=70001&NewsCatID=375

ROYAUME UNIJs43370881 Stirling – Human remains that could date back as early as 1400 have been uncovered at a major development site in Stirling city centre. At least one skeleton was discovered at the site where retail space and housing is planned to be built. Other remains were also found by a contractor undertaking excavation work as a condition of planning permission for the site. ,Records show that the site provided the base for a Dominican friary founded around 1233 and destroyed during the Reformation in 1559. The remains have been found in what would have been the friary’s graveyard.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/ancient-human-remains-found-excavation-3993552

TURQUIEN 69944 1 Gülpınar - 2,000-year-old Apollon Smintheus Temple, which was under a rendering plant in the northwestern province of Çanakkale’s Ayvacık district, has been re-discovered after long-term archaeological efforts.  Professor Coşkun Özgünel, who initiated the excavations in 1980 in the Gülpınar village on behalf of the Culture and Tourism Ministry Cultural Heritage and Museums General Directorate, has spent 35 years of his life dedicated to the Apollon Smintheus Temple. Even though he retired in 2008, Özgünel continued excavations with the goal to revive the southern façade of the temple, which has been looted since the 18th century, using the original tools in hand. The professor said when they had come to the area for excavations, there was no sign of the Apollon Smintheus. Pieces of columns were massed in a place in the temple’s area. Everywhere was a garden. Water pools were constructed; people were watering their gardens through these pools. The name of this area had been ‘Bahçeleriçi’ [inside the gardens] since 1866. There was a rendering plant on the temple. The owner of the plant made use of this area. He built storehouses, as well as channels to discharge the waste from olives. We found the temple among all of these things. They were expropriated one by one. The structure that we organized as a depot museum in the entrance of the temple was another rendering plant. There was a vast layer of earth on the temple. Using the original pieces, we began building its southwestern side. Pullan, who made the first excavations here in 1866, began reconstructing this place and described all of these things,” he said.  We are following his traces and rebuilding this temple. We succeeded in drawing the temple’s southern entrance’s façade. Now we are continuing the restoration of this façade using original pieces. We have 80 percent of these original pieces.” Listing what they had found during the 35 years of excavations, Özgünel said they had discovered a temple from a rendering plant, a depot museum from another rendering temple, a bath complex with a gymnasium, a Roman villa, a bath to the Roman villa, water depots and the most important and best preserved chalcolithic center in northwestern Anatolia, dating back to 4500 B.C.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/historical-apollon-temple-arises-from-rendering-plant.aspx?pageID=238&nID=69944&NewsCatID=375

TURQUIE188932 newsdetail  Heraion Teikhos - The ancient settlement of Heraion Teikhos, located in the Süleymanpaşa district of the Thracian province of Tekirdağ, has been unearthed in excavations that are about to be completed, developing a new cultural tourism landmark. Heraion Teikhos -- also known as the Süleymanpaşa Karaevi tumulus -- is shedding light on the 5,000-year-old history of ancient tribes who lived in Thrace, Bulgaria and northern Greece and became assimilated after Alexander the Great conquered the lands. The excavations being conducted at the ancient city have revealed details about these civilizations, providing an important new cultural value to the region. It is estimated that these tribes resided in the area from around 3,000 B.C. until the 13th century A.D. The head of Namık Kemal University's department of archaeology, Neşe Atik, told the media that the ongoing excavations are the first attempt to investigate the 5,000-year-old Thracian site. “The Thracian tribes lived in a wide expanse stretching over all of present-day Bulgaria, northern Greece, all of western Thrace, and even southern Romania. According to Herodotus, the Thracians were the most populous civilization at the time after the Indians. Now we are uncovering another ancient city for cultural tourism and the acquisition of greater historical knowledge that will help decipher the origins of the Thracian identity. We have dug throughout a 300-square-meter area and no place was empty; there were ruins everywhere we dug.”
http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail.action;jsessionid=FDUaVTjPH5IrIzJ4-SFRZWAk?newsId=354229&columnistId=0

ROYAUME UNIDnews files 2014 08 roman road potholes 140805 jpg  Ipplepen  - Potholes have been a nuisance to drivers as far back as the Roman Empire, a newly discovered Roman road has revealed. Unearthed at Ipplepen, a site thought to be part of the largest Romano-British settlement in Devon outside of Exeter, U.K., the road featured wheel ruts similar to those found at Pompeii. According to the archaeologists, the grooves were caused by horse-drawn carts being driven over the road over a long period of time. It’s intriguing to think what the horse-drawn carts may have been carrying and who was driving them. This is a fantastic opportunity to see a ‘snap shot’ of life 2000 years ago,” Danielle Wootton, the Devon Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, said. Drivers at the time had to deal with hazardous road surfaces — archaeologists found evidence for some of the oldest-known potholes. Holes were filled in with lots of tightly packed stones in order to make the surface smoother and easier for travlers. A smooth road surface meant that there was less chance of getting the wheels of your cart stuck,” Wootton said. Although archaeological evidence revealed the ancient Romans drove on the left in some parts of England, it wasn’t possible to tell if left-hand driving also ruled traffic at Ipplepen. Like their modern counterparts, Roman roads were made to accommodate traffic both ways,” Oltean said. Potholes or wheel ruts created in the process are indicative of the intensity of traffic on a particular stretch, but not of any traffic conventions,” she added.

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/roman-road-reveals-oldest-potholes-140805.htm

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