A large medieval “tableman,” aka gaming piece, has been unearthed from the site of a medieval timber-framed building in Bedfordshire. Its size and decorative style suggest it dates to between the 11th and 13th centuries. Crafted from a cattle mandible, the Bedfordshire piece is 6 cm (2.36 inches) in diameter. It was cut in a … Read the full post →"Large medieval gaming piece found"
A marble statuette of the Buddha has been discovered at the Roman-era Temple of Isis in Berenike on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. It dates to the 2nd century A.D. when the Red Sea ports of Roman Egypt were crucial stops on the trade networks linking the Roman Empire to India. This is the most definitive … Read the full post →"Buddha statue found at Isis Temple in Egypt"
A wooden mask dating to the early 3rd century has been discovered at the Nishi-Iwata Ruins in Osaka. It is only the third known wooden mask from the period ever discovered in Japan. It was found last June during a survey excavation in advance of construction of an extension of the Osaka Monorail. The mask was … Read the full post →"3rd c. wooden mask found in Osaka"
Archaeologists have unearthed the grave of a 1st century man buried with high-quality surgical tools near Jászberény, central Hungary. The grave was discovered last year in an excavation of a site where Copper Age and Avar artifacts had been found on the surface. A subsequent magnetometer survey identified an Avar-era (6th-9th century A.D.) cemetery with … Read the full post →"1st c. surgeon buried with his tools found in Hungary"
An excavation at the Bronze Age site of Casas del Turuñuelo in western Spain’s Badajoz province has unearthed the first figural representations of human faces from the Tartessian culture (8th-4th century B.C.). Archaeologists discovered five figural reliefs dating to the 5th century B.C. Two of them are almost complete and depict female faces wearing large … Read the full post →"First figural depictions of Tartessian culture found"