Ancient seed sprouts plant from the past

On this day ten years ago…
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Thansksgiving Feast-Ancient Tradition

On this day ten years ago…it was Thanksgiving day, 2009
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2,600 year-old kitchen of Kingdom of Lydia unearthed in western Turkey

Turkey’s western province of Balıkesir, (AA Photo)

 

AA photo

Original Article:

dailysabah.com

 

Turkish archeologists in Dascylium ancient city in Turkey’s western province of Balıkesir have discovered a 2,600 year-old kitchen which belonged to the ancient Kingdom of Lydia in Anatolia.

During the excavations, kitchenware including containers, mortars (made up of basalt stone) and some fish bones and seeds were discovered in the area where the age-old kitchen was discovered.

The head of the excavation team Kaan İren, who is a lecturer in the Department of Archeology in Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University in Turkey, spoke to an Anadolu Agency correspondent and said that his team had been digging in three different points in the area.

İren explained that “the founding belong to the Bronze Age, we came across some human traces in the area.”

“It was discovered that our findings including architectural structures, tablets, cult stuff and stoneware belong to the Kingdom of Lydia and Phrygians and date back to eight century BC,” he said.

Six and a half-meter-long walls which were used to strengthen burial mound were also discovered during the excavation. İren explained that the rock tombs had been discovered in the second digging, and that they may be the first source to provide knowledge about rock tombs in ancient history.

“In another point in the area, we found two kitchens which date back the 600 and 540 BC. We found one these kitchens on the top of the other.”

“Below one was collapsed due to fire then the second one was built on it but this one also collapsed due to another fire.” İren said.

This is the first time a fully-equipped kitchen belonging to the Kingdom of Lydia has been discovered in Anatolia.

 

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5,000-year-old grape seeds found in Izmir archaeological site

Grape seeds,DHA Photo

 

Original Article:

dailysabah.com

October 9, 2016

 

Grape seeds dating back 5,000 years were the latest discovery of an archaeological research that has been carried out near an 8,500-year-old mound located in the western Izmir province.

The seeds were uncovered in Yassıtepe Mound located in Bornova district, which is very close to the nearby 8,500-year-old Yeşilova Mound, the oldest settlement near Turkey’s third largest city Izmir.

The seeds are presumed to be that of the renowned Bornova Muscat grape. The head of the excavation team, Assoc. Prof. Zafer Derin said that the seeds, which were found in carbonized form at the bottoms of pottery, could be the oldest grape remains in the Izmir area. Derin added that the seeds could help reveal important details regarding life in Western Anatolia during antiquity.

Anatolia is regarded as one first the regions were grapes are being cultivated in history, with western provinces of Izmir, Aydın and Manisa being the most prominent centers of grape production in Turkey.

In the excavation carried out by the Ege University with the support of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Izmir and Bornova municipalities, more than 300 pieces belonging to the Neolithic and early Bronze ages were unearthed to be examined.

The unearthed objects were displayed in an exhibition at Bornova Municipality’s visitor center at the Yeşilova Mound.

 

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Ancient dinner set found in Turkey’s Manisa

 

Original Article:

hurriyetdailynews.com

MANİSA – Doğan News Agency

 

Archaeologists working in the western province of Manisa have discovered a 2,200-year-old dinner set believed to have been buried as part of a ritual in the ancient city of Aigai.

The dinner set was buried in a hollow in the bedrock as part of a ritual after being used on a special occasion. According to scholars’ hypotheses, beliefs required the dinner set to never be used again, thereby requiring its burial.

The dinner set, which has been sent to the Museum of Manisa for display, includes pieces such as cooking pots (khytra and lopas), cups (skyphos) and pitchers (lagynos) for drinking, as well as clay figures depicting gods and goddesses.

The set was found in the Aigai Town Parliament building, which was built around 150 B.C. and was thought to have been used during sermons dedicated to architecture.

Work in Aigai, located in Manisa’s Yunusemre district, was resumed on July 14 this year with the support of the Culture and Tourism Ministry under the direction of the archaeology departments at Ege University and Celal Bayar University.

Excavations on the site, which are currently being conducted on only a small area due to a lack of sponsorship, will continue until September.

July/29/2016

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‘Be cheerful, live your life:’ Ancient mosaic ‘meme’ found in Turkey’s south

 

Original Article:

hurriyetdailynews.com

 

What could be considered an ancient motivational meme which reads “be cheerful, live your life” in ancient Greek has been discovered on a centuries-old mosaic found during excavation works in the southern province of Hatay.

Demet Kara, an archaeologist from the Hatay Archaeology Museum, said the mosaic, which was called the “skeleton mosaic,” belonged to the dining room of a house from the 3rd century B.C., as new findings have been unearthed in the ancient city of Antiocheia.

“There are three scenes on glass mosaics made of black tiles. Two things are very important among the elite class in the Roman period in terms of social activities: The first is the bath and the second is dinner. In the first scene, a black person throws fire. That symbolizes the bath. In the middle scene, there is a sundial and a young clothed man running towards it with a bare-headed butler behind. The sundial is between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. 9 p.m. is the bath time in the Roman period. He has to arrive at supper at 10 p.m. Unless he can, it is not well received. There is writing on the scene that reads he is late for supper and writing about time on the other. In the last scene, there is a reckless skeleton with a drinking pot in his hand along with bread and a wine pot. The writing on it reads ‘be cheerful and live your life,’” Kara explained.

Kara added the mosaic was a unique finding for the country.

“[This is] a unique mosaic in Turkey. There is a similar mosaic in Italy but this one is much more comprehensive. It is important for the fact that it dates back to the 3rd century B.C.,” Kara said.

She also said that Antiocheia was the world’s third largest city in the Roman era, and continued:

“Antiocheia was a very important, rich city. There were mosaic schools and mints in the city. The ancient city of Zeugma in [the southeastern province of] Gaziantep might have been established by people who were trained here. Antiocheia mosaics are world famous.”

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Ancient saltpan first in Anatolia

Archaeological work in the ancient city of Kaunos has unearthed a 2,000 year-old saltpan. The ancient city, which dates back to 3,000 years ago, is located in the Dalyan neighborhood in the western province of Muğla’s Ortaca district.

Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Rector Professor Mansur Harmandar said they have been carrying out scientific work in the region since İztuzu beach was handed over to the university.

He said a team headed by Professor Cengiz Işık was working in the area, which is home to many historical artifacts.

The professor said during the course of the work they had discovered an area where salt was produced, and continued:

“Forty-eight saltpans were unearthed in the area of İztuzu beach. A project will be made soon to help the area gain tourism. We are currently working on a project in which ancient-era work will be revived. Our purpose is to boost tourism in the area as well as protect and use it.”

Harmandar said the ancient city of Kaunos was a center of trade and civilization in the past, and excavations and scientific studies showed that the locals earned great income from salt production in the region.

Most important finding

The deputy head of Kaunos excavations, Assistant Professor Ufuk Çörtük, said Kaunos had a very significant position among Anatolian cities and excavations had been ongoing there since 1966.

Çörtük said 48 salt platforms and four channels had been unearthed in the ancient saltpan facility, adding, “The most important outcome of the Kaunos excavations is the saltpans. 2,000 year-old saltpans made us very excited.”

He said the ancient facility was located on a narrow sand dune on İnceburun Hill behind İztuzu beach, adding the production of salt was an irreplaceable part of social and economic life in the city.

“Our studies reveal that the saltpan is the first one in Anatolian archaeology. Its localization, architectural tissue and production system can be explained,” he said.

Çörtük said interest in the saltpan would increase once the region starts serving tourism.

“It is reported in the ‘customs regulations’ inscription, which was found in the ancient site, that Kaunos salt was one of the most important export articles of the city. In order to boost trade with Kaunos, Roman Emperor Hadrian needed to take some incentive measures regarding the customs regulations. These regulations didn’t compromise only two products; salt is one of them,” he said.

Çörtük said salt was the most desired product in Kaunos because salt was considered a health product for the eyes.

According to ancient era writer Plinius, salt was used for insect stings because of its purifying, dissolvent and caustic features, said Çörtük, adding the writer mentioned both the Salt Lake and Kaunos in regards to salt production.

Original Article:

Hurriyetdailynews.com
 

   

  

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Ancient kitchen found in Sagalassos

A 2,000-year-old kitchen, which dates back to the late Roman era, has been discovered in the ancient city of Sagalassos in Turkey’s southern province of Burdur.
Excavations in the ancient city started in early June, but the discovery of the kitchen was only reported last month.

“The kitchen was completely unearthed. We will learn in great detail about the kitchen culture present in that era. This is a very detailed scientific work. Not only archaeologists, but also anthropologists, zoologists and botanists are working together [on this project],” said Professor Jereon Poblome, head of excavations.

“There are no tiles on the ground, only soil. The understanding of hygiene was different in the late Roman era. Ergonomically, it is a difficult kitchen for us [to use], but they became used to it. They use to put coal in the middle and a pot on it with bulgur and meat inside. They used to put two more pots on both sides to keep it warm. There were no ovens at that time, so they used a floor furnace and used it to cooked bread. All details [regarding the kitchen and its surroundings] will eventually come to light,” Poblome added, noting the ancient kitchen was very small compared to modern-day kitchens.
“We are mainly working on excavating baths [at the moment]. We would like to open this place to visitors because we want show the beauty this place has to offer. Our works in the upper agora have been continuing for many years. We estimate that they will end in 2017-2018,” he said.

Monumental city

Since 1990, Marc Waelkens of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium has been leading a major excavation project at the Sagalassos site.

The first survey documents 1,000 years of occupation – from Alexander the Great to the 7th century – as well as the changing settlement patterns, vegetation history, farming practices and the changes in the climate in the area during the last 10,000

Source: Hurriyet Daily News [August 21, 2014]
Posted by Tann

Original article:
archeologynewsnetwork

A kitchen was completely unearthed in the ancient city of Sagalassos. ‘It is very small compared to modern-day kitchens,’ says Jereon Poblome [Credit: AA]

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Sardis dig yields enigmatic trove: ritual egg in a pot

A ritual deposit, found intact beneath a first century Roman house in Sardis. The deposit, found inside two bowls, includes a number of small implements, a unique coin and an egg. The hole in the egg was made in antiquity.

Photos: Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/Harvard University
Topic: Ritual find and an egg

Sardis dig yields enigmatic trove: ritual egg in a pot

A ritual deposit, found intact beneath a first century Roman house in Sardis. The deposit, found inside two bowls, includes a number of small implements, a unique coin and an egg. The hole in the egg was made in antiquity.

By any measure, the ancient city of Sardis — home of the fabled King Croesus, a name synonymous with gold and vast wealth, and the city where coinage was invented — is an archaeological wonder.

The ruins of Sardis, in what is now Turkey, have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity from the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia, through later Greek and Roman occupations.

Scholars digging at Sardis, the capital of ancient Lydia later occupied by Greeks and Romans. Sardis, in modern Turkey, was the fabled home of King Croesus, the richest man of his day, according to lore.

Now, however, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.

“The two deposits each consist of a small pot with a lid, a coin, a group of sharp metal implements and an egg, one of which is intact except for a hole carefully punched in it in antiquity,” explains Will Bruce, a classics graduate student a the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been digging at Sardis for the past six years. Bruce made the finds last summer.

The dig at Sardis is overseen by Nicholas Cahill, a UW-Madison professor of art history. Cahill has directed field research at Sardis for decades. Both ritual deposits, says Cahill, date from the Roman era of Sardis, about A.D. 70 or 80.

Bruce and his team were excavating below the floor of a first century room, built over the ruins of an earlier building, which had probably been destroyed in a massive earthquake in A.D. 17.

Digging beneath the floor, Bruce and his colleagues first uncovered a thin-walled, nearly intact jug and, nearby, an assemblage of mostly unbroken pottery. “It looked like we were reaching a more intact deposit instead of fill,” says Bruce.

Within that assemblage, Bruce began to carefully uncover an inverted bowl, which turned out to be sitting on top of another bowl. The bowls, still filled with dirt, were carefully removed and immediately turned over to conservators who cleaned and dissembled them to find a set of small pointed instruments, a coin with a lion and portrait of Nero, and the intact egg.

“The ritual offerings were dug into pits in the floor, after the room was constructed,” says Cahill. “We know they were renovating the room periodically, because in another part of the space there was a dump of painted wall plaster buried under the floor, presumably in a renovation.”

“The meaning of these deposits is still quite open to interpretation,” notes Cahill, “but burying votive deposits below ground or in a wall was a fairly common practice,” perhaps as a ritual offering to protect the house. Roman literary sources suggest eggs were used in particular rituals.

For the archaeologists, part of the intrigue is that similar groups of bowls, needles, coins and eggs were discovered at Sardis more than 100 years ago when the temple of Artemis was excavated by Princeton University archaeologists. “It is an exact parallel to what they found in the early 20th century,” according to Cahill.

The coin was also unique. Sardis is famous as the place where coinage was invented in the Western world, first using electrum, an alloy of silver and gold, and later of pure gold and silver. Nearby sources of gold made ancient Lydia, and King Croesus, fabulously wealthy. While these Lydian coins are very rare, coins and coin hoards from later Greek and Roman occupiers of Sardis are routinely found.

But the coin found with the egg, says Cahill, seems to be special.

“The coin has a portrait of Nero on the front. The original reverse was hammered flat, and the image of a lion engraved in its place, which is very odd.” Expert numismatists have never seen anything like it. “The image of the lion is important because it is emblematic of the Lydian kings and of their native mother goddess Cybele,” Cahill says.

The discovery is unusual, Cahill notes, because finding ritualistic objects intact and in place after thousands of years is no everyday discovery, even in a rich archaeological context such as Sardis. “Ancient ritual was important to people. It is most unusual to find such fragile things so perfectly preserved.”

Original article:
wisc.edu
March 3, 2014 by Terry Devitt

An inverted bowl, covering another bowl with a ritual deposit, emerges from the earth. The bowls contained a ritual deposit of a coin, small metal implements and an egg.

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Last grain stores at Çatalhöyük found

South area excavation of Çatal Höyük, Turkey. Image: Ziggurat. Wikimedia (used under a CC BY-SA 3.0)

Topic: Ancient grain found

A cache of perfectly preserved Neolithic grain, the largest so far known in the Middle East, has been uncovered by Polish archaeologists working at Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey.

Çatalhöyük is one of the centres of urbanisation of the earliest farming communities and one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.

”In a small room with an area of ​​approximately 7 square metres we discovered four containers formed from packed clay containing a large quantity of multi-row grains” – explained Prof. Arkadiusz Marciniak from the Institute of Prehistory in Poznan.

Well preserved

In total, between the two grain hoppers that were excavated the archaeologists recovered almost 5kg of grain. Such an amount in a well preserved state is of great importance to the investigation of early agriculture.

Archaeobotanical research has shown that it was an extinct species of wheat – popular in Neolithic times in the Middle East and Europe. The room in which the discovery was made lay in the north-eastern part of the house group – which consisted of residential buildings constructed around 8,200 years ago.
A period of decline

The find dates to a period when this once thriving settlement was in decline and inhabited by only a single household. The entire complex of structures will be fully investigated over the coming research seasons.

It is clear that the storage room in which the grain bins were located had burned down with carbonised grains suggesting a swift and hot fire. In addition to the grain bins, the archaeologists also recovered several ceramic vessels.

Çatalhöyük is located in the southern part of the Anatolian Plain in central Turkey and excavations began in the 1960s under the direction of James Mellaart. The research resumed in 1993 under an international team headed by Professor Ian Hodder of Stanford University with Polish archaeologists joining the project in 2001.

Çatalhöyük was inhabited continuously for around 1200 years between 7200 and 6000 BCE.

In its heyday, this densely built-up residential area covered several acres and had a population of up to 6000 inhabitants.

Source: PAP – Science and Scholarship in Poland http://www.naukawpolsce.pap.pl

Original article:

past horizons
Jan 14, 2014

Containers for barley in the room where the stored grain was discovered. Image: A. Marciniak

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