IT’S likely to be some weeks yet before Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen announces recommendations for dealing with and possibly preserving what historians are now describing as Ireland’s first town.
The discovery of the Viking settlement, at Woodstown, five miles from the city, which is believed to date back to the mid-9th century, was made as preparatory work got underway on the city’s €300m by-pass.
The site, located close to the River Suir, is 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide and so far up to 3,000 artifacts have been found over a distance of 150 yards. From photographs, which have been examined by the country’s leading archaeologists, early indications suggest that the complete original town of Waterford founded by the Vikings remains virtually intact with dozens of streets and dwellings just under the soil surface.
We first reported on this on June 6. We're not sure where the "Pompeii" analogy comes in, except maybe it's supposed to be a big place. Generally, comparing something to Pompeii means it was preserved almost intact at some instant in time. This seems to be just a large early site.
Borders folk may be descended from Africans
Families who have lived in the English-Scottish Borders for generations could be descended from African soldiers who patrolled Hadrian's Wall nearly 2,000 years ago.
Archaeologists say there is compelling evidence that a 500-strong unit of Moors manned a fort near Carlisle in the third century AD.
Richard Benjamin, an archaeologist at Liverpool University who has studied the history of black Britons, believes many would have settled and raised families.
"When you talk about Romans in Britain, most people think about blue eyes and pale complexions," he said. "But the reality was very different."
China's Oldest Capital
Since their discovery in 1898, the Yin ruins of Henan Province have provided the world with over 150,000 oracle artifacts. Inscribed with records of harvests, astronomical phenomena, worship and wars of the Shang dynasty (1600–1100 B.C., also known as the Yin dynasty), the tortoiseshells and animal bones from the Yin ruins are now scattered across the globe.
The oracles are inscribed with what is regarded as one of the earliest written languages, which formed the basis for modern Chinese characters. Many scholars around the world are interested in the oracles, said archaeologist Yang Xizhang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
Located in the city of Anyang, the Yin ruins are the remains of the oldest known capital city in the country. Yang says they are one of the 100 greatest archaeological discoveries in China in the past century.
Antiquities Market update Sting operation halts illegal sales of ancient artifacts
Iraqi authorities say they have broken up a gang that has been selling ancient artifacts illegally dug up from the area of the ancient city of Babylon.
Four men were arrested in a sting operation early last week, and hundreds of items ranging from statuettes to bowls to tablets with cuneiform writing were recovered, Gen. Muhssin Ali, a senior official in Iraq's Interior Ministry, said Sunday.
Archaeologists and art lovers worldwide have been concerned about the disappearance of Iraq's antiquities into the black market during the U.S. occupation.
More on Iraq In the shadow of Babylon
If you want to understand day by day the turmoil of Iraq now, you can of course gorge on newspapers and television bulletins. But if you have any energy left, you should go to the British Museum and see a different kind of reportage.
The antiquities of Mesopotamia reveal the constants of Middle Eastern politics. Endlessly fluctuating frontiers and proliferating religions mean endless wars. Here, in the sculptured reliefs, are the cities bombarded, the hostages taken, the aggressive displays of military power, the puppet rulers installed, the brutality of militaristic regimes.
Baghdad fell last year, but Babylon falls every day in the National Gallery. In Rembrandt's Balshazzar's Feast, painted in Amsterdam in the 1630s, a corrupt and doomed ruler is about to be deposed by foreign armies, all apparently in the name of a God that he has disparaged. The writing on the wall announces (for those with eyes to see) that Balshazzar has been found wanting and that his kingdom will be divided among foreign occupiers. In a few hours divine retribution will strike. It is the biblical story as shaped by the Dutch 17th century.
The Mesopotamian collections and displays at the BM are truly remarkable. We could make a somewhat unfavorable contrast with the (generally boring) Egyptian displays, but that would incite the ire of Egyptologists the world over, so we shan't.
Thief! Thief! Archaeologists solve medieval mystery
An archaeologist has helped solve a medieval mystery about a thieving monk.
Gabor Thomas' work has finally laid to rest a centuries-old argument about where in Sussex the errant monk did his pilfering.
The story began when a ship was forced to take shelter from a storm one Easter Sunday in the 11th Century and a monk among the passengers travelled to a nearby church to praise God.
But he left with the remains of St Lewinna hidden in his luggage, which became a famed money-spinner for his monastery at Bergues, near Dunkirk.
Save the shells! Officials hoping to protect shells, artifacts
Officials are seeking an environmental permit to construct a retaining wall that would protect a pile of shells and other possible artifacts from a creek's rising waters.
The pile of shells, possibly 4,500 years old, remains at Edisto Beach State Park and is known as an Indian shell midden. It's about 60 feet long and eight inches high. State park archaeologists and officials worry that without protective measures, the heap of shells and possibly other artifacts will erode into the creek, leaving few clues of the tribal life that once existed there.
The state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism is seeking the permit to construct a retaining wall 100 feet long and nearly seven feet high to help keep the Scott's Creek waters at bay, according to Curtis Joyner of the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management.
Park manager Robert Achenberg said the erosion seems to be speeding up.
A shell midden is essentially a very large pile of discarded garbage consisting mostly of shells. Coastal communities would collect large numbers of shells and then discard them near the shore building up a very large pile of them over time. Interesting book on the subject: Deciphering a Shell Midden by Julie K. Stein of the University of Washington. Very detailed set of papers on a single site in Washington State.