https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/moorgate-miniatureA rare gold Roman pendant in the form of a phallus and a hand making the ‘mano fica’ gesture, the thumb thrust between the middle and index fingers, has been discovered (2013) during excavation at 8 - 10 Moorgate in London.
They were everywhere as a good luck charm.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collectio ... Palart-550This sculpture depicts two deer following each other nose to tail. It is made of ivory from the the tip of mammoth tusk. Found as two pieces, it was rejoined along an ancient break between the two animals in 1905. As the sex of each animal is clearly shown, it is clear that the larger male is behind a smaller female and, as both animals have antlers, they must be reindeer because the only female deer to have antlers are reindeer hinds. This identification is further confirmed by the distinctive features of the hind's face, the detailed shading of the body showing the colour and texture variation in the markings of her coat and the smaller antlers. The antlers on the male extend along three quarters of his back which is proportionate for a mature stag. His face and body are not shaded in keeping with less variation in the coat. The forward extension of the antlers called brow tines are not shown extending over the faces as in nature because the shape and size of the ivory would not allow it.
The necks and legs of both animals are outstretched suggesting they are in motion. The front legs of the female extend forward together, as do those of the male. The back legs of the hind extend back behind her but ancient damage to the back of the stag has changed the orginal appearance of the piece. An engraving of the piece when it was first found and a plaster cast made in 1867 show that the left back leg extended behind the animal. By the time it was drawn and published by abbe Breuil in 1905 this fragile limb was missing. Digital replication from the plaster cast indicates that the stag's back legs extended and converged behind him in the same manner as those on the female but forming a delicate, open loop on the end of the sculpture. It also suggests that the stag had a characteristic short, stumpy tail carved in the round and extending the curvature of the back down over the rump. Older photographs of the stag show a repair to the rump that was removed in 2011 revealing the overall symmetry and fluency of the original composition.
Both reindeer are shown with their chins up. Their noses are scuplted in relief and the eyes and ears are similarly treated. The eye sockets are formed in relief and the eyes added as engraved ovals reproducing the goggle-eyed appearance of these rather poor-sighted animals. The ears are folded back against the head. These details, in addition to the outstretched limbs, imply that the pair are depicted as if in water and this led to the piece becoming popularly known as 'the swimming reindeer'.
The official explanation is that they were filled with the gaze at/of the divine, but I reckon they were off their chops on mushrooms.
Dogu means "clay figure" in Japanese. These enigmatic Jomon figurines (ca. 13,000/10,000 BC to 400/300 BC) open a haunting window, as yet only dimly understood, to the world of prehistoric Japan. They are male and female effigies, small (most less than one foot), numerous (well over 10,000 found so far)
Dogu are fired clay figurines. Early dogu from around 10,000 BC were abstract representations of the human figure and were quite small. By 4000 BC they had arms and legs and simple heads. By 3000 BC, the faces are fully formed. All dogu are highly stylised. They are not naturalistic representations of people. Over 20,000 dogu have been found on archaeological sites. Almost all of them were deliberately broken by their Jomon makers. On the other hand a small number of perfect dogu figurines have been found in pits and houses, and a few dogu were repaired with asphalt.
That'll do.Yamanashi prefecture (Middle Jomon Hollow cylindrical dogu from Imojiya, c. 2500 – 1500 BC. Height 25.5 centimetres.)
This distinctive dogu may have been a rattle. Other, similar examples, contain a number of small stones that make a noise when the dogu is shaken. The incised marks on the swelling abdomen are interpreted as ‘stretch marks’ indicating pregnancy. This figurine was found almost complete in the remains of a pit dwelling.
As they report today in Nature1, researchers have traced the ancestry of these early Chinese farmers to Stone Age hunter-gatherers who lived in Asia some 9,000 years ago. They seem to have been genetically isolated, but despite this had learnt to raise livestock and grow grains in the same way as other groups.
The study hints at “the really diverse ways in which populations move and don’t move, and how ideas can spread with, but also through, populations”, says co-author Christina Warinner, a molecular archaeologist at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts.
The finding demonstrates that cultural exchange doesn’t always go hand in hand with genetic ties, says Michael Frachetti, an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “Just because those people are trading, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are marrying one another or having children,” he says.
Perfect preservation environment
Starting in the early twentieth century, the mummies were found in cemeteries belonging to the so-called Xiaohe culture, which are scattered across the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region of China. The desert “is one of the most hostile places on Earth”, says Alison Betts, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Here, bodies had been buried in boat-shaped coffins wrapped in cattle hide. The hot, arid and salty environment of the desert naturally preserved them, keeping everything from hair to clothing perfectly intact. Before the latest study, “we knew an awful lot about these people, physically, but we knew nothing about who they were and why they were there”, says Betts.
The mummies — which were buried over a period of 2,000 years or more — date to a significant time in Xinjiang’s history, when ancient communities were shifting from hunter-gatherers to farmers, she adds.
https://www.gardencourtantiques.com/an- ... gust-1972/He was diving at a depth of 8 meters in the waters of Marina di Riace (Reggio Calabria), when he noticed a hand sticking out of the sandy bottom. He began digging in the murky sea floor until it revealed at first a face and then a full body. Indeed, there were two bodies; one lying on his back another lying on it’s side. These are what are now known as the Riace Bronzes. Both statues are almost two meters in height.
In the following days municipal divers tied ropes to balloons that were then filled with air lifting the bronze statues to the surface. Statue B was recovered on August 21st, while Statue A was retrieved the next day (It had previously fallen back to the bottom once before being brought safely to the beach)
WikipediaOriginally they were accompanied by arms: helmet, coat of arms (supported by the bent left arm) and a lance (held by the lowered right hand). Anatomical details are represented with extreme precision (the veins and arteries emerge from the epidermis) and the powerful musculature radiates strength and perfection. The eyes are in white calcite, with iris in glass paste and caruncle teardrop in pink stone; lips, eyelashes, and nipples are made of copper, while the teeth are made of silver paper. Both are produced using the “lost wax casting” technique.
Bronze A has worked hair finished at the top, and a thick and abundant beard, with their locks individually modelled; on the front it has a band that encompasses the curls and enhances the hairstyle. Bronze B has a smooth head, warped upwards to better accommodate the Corinthian helmet raised above his head to reveal the face.
The Riace bronzes (Italian Bronzi di Riace [ˈbrondzi di riˈaːtʃe]), also called the Riace Warriors, are two full-size Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors, cast about 460–450 BC that were found in the sea in 1972 near Riace, Calabria, in southern Italy. The bronzes are now in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in the nearby city of Reggio Calabria. They are two of the few surviving full-size ancient Greek bronzes (which were usually melted down in later times), and as such demonstrate the superb technical craftsmanship and exquisite artistic features that were achieved at this time.
Hahha, thanks Archfi. I am afraid archaeological things and art are my porn. Very boring.
My husband also forces me to look at fossils and semi-precious stones, and even blooming ''special'' pebbles he finds, which I am much less thrilled about but still they are nice enough..... I suppose. 
(Wiki)The Pazyryk rug is one of the oldest carpets in the world, dating around the 4th–3rd centuries BC. It is now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Pazyryk rug was found in 1949 in the grave of a Scythian nobleman in the Bolshoy Ulagan dry valley of the Altai Mountains in Kazakhstan. The Pazyrk rug had been frozen in the ice and it was very well preserved. The rug has a ribbon pattern in the middle, and a border which has deer, and warriors riding on horses. All parts of the rug are made of wool, including the pile and the base.
https://medium.com/teatime-history/the- ... fcacf70dc4She died of breast cancer, most likely. According to the MRI scans, Dr. Andrey Letyagin believes she developed breast cancer in her early twenties. The asymmetry in the MR signals from the scan, according to Dr Letyagin, shows she had a tumor in her right breast.
The disease’s excruciating pain worsened over time, weakening her. It is possible that she fell off a horse, fracturing her bones not long before her death.
She was in a lot of pain and relied on cannabis to help her. The presence of cannabis in her grave is proof of this. High-ranking members of Eurasian nomadic civilizations widely used cannabis.
The Ice Maiden’s skin remained intact, embalmed with herbs, grasses, and wool, according to Dr. Polosmak’s team. The horses were sacrificed and buried alongside the princess. They dressed her in a silk top and a striped woolen skirt. As the highest ranking members of nomadic societies wore silk, it is safe to assume she was a princess.
The Ice Maiden had a cosmetics bag on her left hip, showing that she cared about her looks. There were fragments of an eye liner pencil made of vivianite, a type of iron phosphate which gives a blue green color.
They also unearthed a small plate containing coriander seeds, probably used for medicinal purposes.
The archaeologists’ biggest surprise, however, was that the princess was bald! Her hair was a wig consisting of two layers of female hair, and they shaved her head. On the top of the wig, there was a felt spike with fifteen gold foil birds on it.
Tattoos, according to Polosmak, are a symbol of beauty. Back then, the goal was to appear as gorgeous as possible. Because the tattoo was visible, she placed it on the shoulder to appear as attractive as possible.
The Ice Maiden had tattoos on both arms and fingers, but the one on her left shoulder was preserved for the best. According to Polosmak, the visible shoulder tattoo resembles a griffin’s beak.
Other tattoos included sheep and a snow leopard.
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-unearthed ... ement.htmlBast fiber is found between the bark and the wood in trees such as willow, oak or linden. The people from Catalhöyük used oak bark, and thus fashioned their clothes from the bark of trees that they found in their surroundings. They also used oak timber as a building material for their homes, and people undoubtedly harvested the bast fibers when trees were felled.
The Vogelherd Cave is located in the eastern Swabian Jura, south-western Germany. This limestone karst cave came to scientific and public attention after the 1931 discovery of the Upper Palaeolithic Vogelherd figurines, attributed to paleo-humans of the Aurignacian culture. These miniature sculptures made of mammoth ivory rank among the oldest uncontested works of art of mankind.
The figure of the woolly mammoth is tiny, measuring just 3.7 cm long and weighing a mere 7.5 grams, and displays skilfully detailed carvings. It is unique in its slim form, pointed tail, powerful legs and dynamically arched trunk. It is decorated with six short incisions, and the soles of the pachyderm's feet show a crosshatch pattern.
The miniature lion is 5.6 cm long, has a extended torso and outstretched neck. It is decorated with approximately 30 finely incised crosses on its spine.
Click on guided tour here.
I've visited the replica alright and very impressive it is too. In the 80's I got the chance to see the original Altamira cave in Northern Spain. That's closed now too. Even back then the group let in was like six people.
