by n1c on 10/7/23, 7:59 PM with 66 comments
by Daub on 10/8/23, 1:24 AM
by wood_spirit on 10/8/23, 6:23 AM
Would warmly recommend joining local archeological and historical societies wherever you are.
by mock-possum on 10/8/23, 12:23 AM
by mongol on 10/8/23, 6:13 AM
by tokai on 10/8/23, 2:50 AM
https://lejremuseum.dk/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/02/0...
by hutzlibu on 10/8/23, 1:14 AM
Ritualistic trope comment preventer:
"One of the reasons archaeologists believe this was a temple, besides the gold foil figures, is the absence of other finds that would be natural if people lived there, like cooking pots and whetstones. "
Other things I found interesting:
"Throughout the autumn and winter, C14 dating will finally determine if it is true that the temple has stood here since around the year 600 – and right up to the 11th century"
600 year old temple out of wood. That would be something.
Then: one of the foils found appears to be intentional crumbled. Which makes sense when it was meant to be a offering to the gods. Or this one was negated, whatever it meant. Since they always show a men and a women(on this site), they might have symbolized marriage (of rich people) and were placed on a special place for good luck and the one crumbled was a marriage not working out. But:
"In Norway, findings of gold foil figures are rare. The 35 from the temple in Vingrom represent the largest collection we have found in this country.
In a similar temple in Uppåkra in Sweden, archaeologists found 100 gold foil figures.
On the Danish island of Bornholm, over 2,500 gold foil figures were found in a field.
Were there not so many gold foil figures in Norway at that time, or have we just not found them?"
"There are also other regional differences: In Denmark, there are more individual figures, whereas in Norway and Sweden, it is mostly couples that are depicted."
So alltogether not much is know about this old custom.
But I think it is interesting and I like the simple art they are showing.
by nshm on 10/8/23, 7:29 AM
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-welsh-gold...
by khy on 10/8/23, 5:11 AM
by mensetmanusman on 10/8/23, 3:06 AM
Ancient Egyptians were known to do this around 5000 BC or so.
Cool to think of the journey of this technology to the northern kingdoms over many generations.
by HerculePoirot on 10/8/23, 12:41 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Paleolithic_hoax
> The Japanese Paleolithic hoax (旧石器捏造事件, Kyū Sekki Netsuzō Jiken) consisted of a number of lower and middle paleolithic finds in Japan discovered by amateur archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura, which were later all discovered to have been faked. The incident became one of the biggest scandals in archaeological circles in Japan after the story was published by the Mainichi Shimbun on November 5, 2000.
> Hearing the rumour of fraud, journalists from Mainichi newspaper installed hidden cameras at a dig site where Fujimura was working and caught him planting artifacts. The newspaper later confronted Fujimura with the video, and he was forced to confess his fraud.
> It was also reported[by whom?] that prior to discovery of the hoax, Japan's paleolithic period was thought to have started earlier than anywhere else in Asia at around 700,000 BCE.
> It is clear that a number of the artifacts found by Fujimura are rather unnatural and do not make archaeological sense, such as those exhumed from pyroclastic flow strata, but nonetheless majority archaeological groups as well as local and government organisations which substantially benefited from his find ignored these inconsistencies.
Now let's focus on the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun, Howard Carter. I will bring an alternate story, by merely quoting Wikipedia's page about this man:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Carter
> Howard Carter was born in Kensington on 9 May 1874,[1] the youngest child (of eleven) of artist and illustrator Samuel John Carter and Martha Joyce Carter (née Sands). His father helped train and develop his artistic talents.[2]
> he showed talent as an artist. The nearby mansion of the Amherst family, Didlington Hall, contained a sizable collection of Egyptian antiques, which sparked Carter's interest in that subject. Lady Amherst was impressed by his artistic skills, and in 1891 she prompted the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF) to send Carter to assist an Amherst family friend, Percy Newberry, in the excavation and recording of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan.
> Although only 17, Carter was innovative in improving the methods of copying tomb decoration.
> In 1899, Carter was appointed Inspector of Monuments for Upper Egypt in the Egyptian Antiquities Service (EAS).[8] Based at Luxor, he oversaw a number of excavations and restorations at nearby Thebes
> In 1907, he began work for Lord Carnarvon, who employed him to supervise the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahri, near Thebes.
> In 1914, Lord Carnarvon received the concession to dig in the Valley of the Kings.[17] Carter led the work, undertaking a systematic search for any tombs missed by previous expeditions, in particular that of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. However, excavations were soon interrupted by the First World War
> By 1922, Lord Carnarvon had become dissatisfied with the lack of results after several years of finding little. After considering withdrawing his funding, Carnarvon agreed, after a discussion with Carter, that he would fund one more season of work in the Valley of the Kings.[18]
> Carter returned to the Valley of Kings, and investigated a line of huts that he had abandoned a few seasons earlier. The crew cleared the huts and rock debris beneath
> Carter returned to the Valley of Kings, and investigated a line of huts that he had abandoned a few seasons earlier. The crew cleared the huts and rock debris beneath. On 4 November 1922, their young water boy accidentally stumbled on a stone that turned out to be the top of a flight of steps cut into the bedrock
> In spite of evidence of break-ins in ancient times, the tomb was virtually intact, and would ultimately be found to contain over 5,000 items.
> Towards the end of February 1923, a rift between Lord Carnarvon and Carter, probably caused by a disagreement on how to manage the supervising Egyptian authorities, temporarily halted the excavation. Work recommenced in early March after Lord Carnarvon apologised to Carter.[35] Later that month Lord Carnarvon contracted blood poisoning while staying in Luxor near the tomb site
> Harold Plenderleith, a former associate of Carter's at the British Museum, was quoted as saying that he knew "something about Carter that was not fit to disclose"
TL;DR
Carter had the skills necessary to fake the artifacts he discovered, which is what he did in the huts he had set up above the tomb's emplacement, as the funds that were allotted to the expedition were drying up. He attributed the discovery of to their young water boy accidentally stumbling on a stone to give the discovery the touch of innocence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_the_tomb_of_Tutan...
> The unexpectedly rich burial consisted of more than five thousand objects
It just sounds too good to be true.
The same reflexion can be applied to:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/feb/research-stonehenge-firs...
> Professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL Institute of Archaeology) discusses his research which has found a dismantled stone circle in west Wales which was moved to Salisbury Plain and rebuilt as Stonehenge.
The same pattern of a last successful dig can be noticed:
> Yet after having no luck with other circular monuments in the area, we returned to Waun Mawn for a final speculative dig. To everyone’s delight, our dig supervisor Dave Shaw discovered two empty stoneholes, one on each end of the arc of stones, where missing stones had once stood.
by willwinger on 10/8/23, 5:16 AM
