Field Notes

010

Death Most Foul

Was the Alpine Iceman Murdered?

More than a decade after his discovery, Oetzi the Iceman is still in the news.

The 5,200-year-old mummy was found in 1991 by hikers high in the mountains of northern Italy’s Oetz Valley. The frozen 35-year-old man was still wearing a fur hat, a deerskin tunic and boots stitched up with animal tendons. Scientists later noticed that Oetzi’s body was covered with tattoos corresponding to acupuncture points. Analysis of the contents of his stomach suggests that he was a vegetarian. Recently, however, this image of a squeaky clean hipster has been tarnished—for it appears that Oetzi was also murdered.

In July 2001 an arrowhead was found in Oetzi’s back. After finding the arrowhead, researchers interviewed alpine guide Alois Pirpamer, who was a member of the original investigation team. Pirpamer recalled that before the mummy was extracted from the ice, the frozen right hand held a small object resembling a dagger, which apparently fell into a pool of icewater and went unnoticed. This was confirmed when investigators reviewed television news film of the recovery.

Upon examining Oetzi’s right hand, investigators found a cut on the palm. According to Dr. Eduard Egarter Vigl, chief medical examiner for the town of Bolzano, Italy, where the mummy is housed, this cut was inflicted very near the time of death. “But this is not all,” Vigl said, “an x-ray of the hand clearly shows a cut in the bone corresponding to the cut in the flesh.” Apparently, Oetzi was slashed so violently that the blade penetrated the flesh and cut the bone. Further x-rays showed similar “paired” wounds in the flesh and bone of the right arm.

Researchers are now planning to conduct an autopsy on the mummy, especially to learn what role the arrowhead in his back had to do with his death. Gradually, after more than five millennia, Oetzi’s desperate last hours are coming to light.

011

Conserving Jordan

The Hashemite Kingdom Strives to Preserve the Ancient Past

Jordan leads the Middle East in the training of archaeological conservators. No other country in the region can touch it, writes Ziad al-Saad, editor of the newsletter of Yarmouk University’s Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. The institute has developed a three-year Master’s degree program in archaeological conservation that is now in its fifth year. And a new department of the university also offers a Master’s in cultural resources management.

In addition, the Madaba School of Mosaics, in cooperation with Jordan’s Ministry of Tourism and the government of Italy, has created a three-year program to restore Jordan’s rich heritage of ancient mosaics.

Nevertheless, with over 20,000 archaeological sites registered in a recent survey, Jordan is losing the war against destruction and loss. As al-Saad put it, “As ancient man who lived in Jordan was uniquely creative, his present successor is equally destructive.” Treasure hunters and looters early in the century left many of Jordan’s cultural treasures in Western museums and private collections. What remains, wrote al-Saad, is “under imminent threat … of deterioration and destruction.” While nature itself is partly responsible, the main factor is human: urban and commercial development over archaeological sites, the absence of clear policies to manage cultural resources, a shortage of qualified personnel, and ignorance of proper conservation techniques.

Al-Saad gives several examples of the latter, including the use of Portland cement with a high salt content to restore stone sculptures, dipping metal objects in acidic solutions to remove corrosion, and brushing pottery in the field with hard brushes and salty tap water.

Issues of archaeological conservation are finally being addressed—by scholars if not by funders—internationally as well as nationally. In recent years, Jordanian archaeological conservators have participated in colloquia on archaeological conservation and cultural resource management in Lebanon, Greece, Germany and France.—H.S.

011

What Do You Know About Troy?

1) Where is Troy?

a) in modern Turkey
b) in southern Crete (across the island from the palace of King Minos)
c) in northern Greece
d) on the island of Sicily

2) Of Troy’s 10 major occupation levels, from 3,000 B.C. to 1300 A.D., which is thought to be the city described by Homer?

a) Troy II (2550–2250 B.C.)
b) Troy IV and V (2000–1700 B.C.)
c) Troy VI and VIIa (1700–1180 B.C.)
d) Troy VIII (700–85 B.C.)

3) When were the Homeric epics written down?

a) around 1200 B.C. (after the collapse of Troy VI)
b) eighth century B.C.
c) fifth or fourth century B.C. (during the Athenian golden age)
d) in the early 17th century A.D. by either Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere

4) Who was Priam?

a) the king of Homer’s Troy (father of Paris and Hector)
b) a mythical figure who mined for gold
c) the eponymous founder of the Kingdom of Priam
d) one of King Agamemnon’s generals

5) “Priam’s Treasure,” found in the 1870s by Heinrich Schliemann, was

a) the treasury of Priam, ruler of Late Bronze Age Troy
b) Scythian jewelry
c) gifts left at Troy by Greek and Roman pilgrims
d) a group of disparate finds, mostly from Troy II

6) The only text from Late Bronze Age Troy (14th and 13th centuries B.C.) is in what language?

a) Urartian, a language related to Hurrian
b) early Greek, written in the Linear B script
c) Luwian, a language related to Hittite
d) Minoan, written in the Linear A script

7) According to Troy’s excavators, the Late Bronze Age city prospered from

a) extensive copper and tin resources (the ingredients of bronze)
b) sea trade
c) tribute paid by colonies along the Aegean coast
d) its world-renowned marble sculptors

8) The Greco-Roman name for Troy was

a) Ionia
b) Miletus
c) Heliopolis
d) Ilios/Ilium

Answers

1)a, 2)c, 3)b, 4)a, 5)d, 6)c, 7)b, 8)d

012

Recent Finds

Surgeon’s Tomb
Saqqara, Egypt
Old Kingdom

In October 2001, archaeologists working at the Saqqara plateau—a vast necropolis about 15 miles southwest of Cairo with burials dating principally to the Old Kingdom (2575–2134 B.C.)—discovered the entrance to a vaulted limestone tomb. Inscriptions in the tomb identify it as belonging to Skar, who served as chief surgeon to an unknown Old Kingdom pharaoh.

The team found two false doors engraved with hieroglyphic texts and walls covered with colorfully painted scenes illustrating Skar’s daily activities. A shaft led to a burial chamber, where a limestone sarcophagus bearing the deceased’s name was discovered, along with a cache of bronze surgical tools, including scalpels, needles and tweezers—the only such implements ever uncovered in an Old Kingdom tomb. The tomb also contained an alabaster offering table (above) with inscriptions describing the foods Skar consumed during his lifetime and seven rectangular stones, also made of alabaster, which once held sacred oils used in rituals.

012

Excavating Etruria

A New Ancient Etruscan Mining Town

After excavating for more than two decades near Massa Marittima, 60 miles southwest of Florence, Italian archaeologist Giovannangelo Camporeale recently struck pay dirt: He found the largest undisturbed Etruscan settlement known to date.

The 2,700-year-old town—apparently a settlement of miners who worked at nearby copper, iron, silver and tin mines—was laid out in a rectangular plan with orderly streets divided into five sections. The town’s more lavish houses were made of mudbricks and roofed with terracotta tiles similar to those still used in Tuscany today.

The excavations so far have yielded spinning and mining tools and some fragmented inscriptions. Although much is known about the burial practices of the Etruscans—a civilization that flourished north of Rome from the eighth to the third century B.C.—surprisingly few traces of Etruscan everyday life have been uncovered. As the excavations proceed, this mining town may help us understand how the Etruscans lived, rather than how they died.

One thing we know: These Etruscans were thrifty. When the settlement was suddenly abandoned, its inhabitants took their roof tiles with them.

013

Ethiopia Demands Its Ancient Stela …

Italy Demurs

After Benito Mussolini’s 1935 attack on Ethiopia—a country whose defenses amounted to ten airplanes, a few hundred machine guns and some saber-bearing men on horseback—the Italian army returned with an enormous war trophy: a 1,700-year-old, 78-foot-tall inscribed stela.

The monolith was found in four sections in modern Axum, a town in the Ethiopian highlands. Axum was once the capital of the ancient Axumite kingdom, which reigned during the first half of the first millennium A.D. and had trade relations with Europe, North Africa, the Near East, the Indian subcontinent and, possibly, China. The so-called Axum Stela is one of many well-preserved obelisks that served as grave-markers for Axum’s kings and merchants.

After being transported to Rome, the stela was erected between the Capena Gate and the Palatine Hill. Despite a United Nations-brokered agreement between Italy and Ethiopia in 1947, stipulating that the stela be returned within 18 months, the obelisk still stands in Rome.

In 1997 the Italians agreed to ship the stela to Ethiopia in four separate parts. Italy has not yet complied, however, largely because of the opposition of its current deputy minister for cultural heritage, Vittorio Sgarbi, a well-known art historian. Sgarbi claims that the 200-ton stela is too heavy and fragile to ship. (Only two aircraft—an American Lockheed and a Russian Anatov—are large enough to transport the stela, and the airstrip in Axum is unable to accommodate either plane.) Sgarbi, who has threatened to resign if the stela is repatriated, also argues that modern Axum lies in a war zone, making it unlikely that the stela would be protected.

Last December Ethiopia again demanded that Italy return the stela. In January, the Ethiopian cultural minister, Teshoma Toga, pleaded with the United Nations for help: “After 55 years, the patience of the Ethiopian people has run out.” The Italian ministry for cultural heritage has yet to respond to Ethiopia’s request.

014

Will the Buddhas Live Again?

Swiss Group Plans to Rebuild Bamiyan’s Colossi

A leading authority on the 1,500-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas, which were destroyed by Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in March 2001, is organizing a campaign to reconstruct the immense statues once carved into a mountain cliff face.

The Swiss art historian Paul Bucherer says he intends to use “the latest technology” to re-erect the two colossi—one 175 feet high and the other 120 feet high—in their original setting in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.

Bucherer is head of the Afghanistan Institute and Museum in Bubendorf, Switzerland, which serves as a repository for rare Afghani religious and cultural relics. The institute was established in response to the Taliban’s destruction of what they considered idolatrous works of art.

The internet-based project plans to sell 20-inch-high replicas of the Buddhas to raise funds to build 1:10 scale models, which will help those undertaking the reconstruction to work through technical problems attending the full-scale rebuilding. The three-dimensional models will then be put on display at the Swiss institute, and an international fundraiser will be held to underwrite the cost of replacing the Buddhas. Construction will be based on the highly accurate measurements made by a Swiss cartographer in Bamiyan 30 years ago. (For more information, see the project’s Web site [www.new7wonders.org.)]

014

Taken by the Nymphs

Egypt Restores 2,000-Year-Old Tomb

Around 120 B.C. a young woman named Isidora (which means “gift of the gods” in Greek) drowned while rowing across the Nile to meet her lover. Her heartbroken father built her a tomb bearing this inscription: “Offer prayers and libations for Isidora / Who, a young girl, was taken by the Nymphs.”

Isidora’s tomb, located in Touna el-Gebel, about 160 miles south of Cairo, was discovered and rebuilt in 1931 by the Egyptian archaeologist Sami Gabra. Since then, however, the tomb had lain in neglect; its walls were cracked and dirty, and Isidora’s mummified remains lay in a broken display case.

All that changed a couple of years ago when Gaballa Ali Gaballa, then head of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities, visited the site and was disturbed by what he saw. Gaballa had the tomb cleaned and repaired. Today, Isidora’s mummy rests in a sparkling glass vitrine and is wrapped in new white linen.

According to Nasri Iskander, the council’s chief conservator of mummies, Isidora’s body was in “a good state of preservation” with much of her skin and soft tissue intact. By the Ptolemaic period, Iskander said, it was no longer customary to remove a corpse’s internal organs and store them in canopic jars. Isidora’s body was probably brushed with salt and then wrapped for burial, “which caused it to dry out quickly enough to remove not only the water but the fat, a breeding ground for bacteria.”

015

Xerxes’s Canal

Storied Persian Waterway Found in Greece

Archaeologists from Britain and Greece recently determined the course of a canal built by the Achaemenid king Xerxes (485–465 B.C.) through the narrow neck of the Athos peninsula in northern Greece.

The canal was constructed in 480 B.C. to enable Persian ships to bypass the rough waters off the peninsula’s southern coast that 12 years earlier had scuttled the invasion fleet of Xerxes’s predecessor, the Achaemenid king Darius. Although Xerxes’s ships passed safely through the canal, the Persian fleet was crushed later that year by the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis—putting an end to Persian incursions into Europe.

Not long after these events, the Greek historian Herodotus (485–425 B.C.) described how soldiers from all parts of the Persian empire, along with natives of Athos, were forced to labor “under the lash” day and night for three years to build the canal: “A line was taped across the isthmus from Sane. When the trench reached a certain depth, the laborers at the bottom carried on with the digging and passed the soil up to the others above them, who stood on terraces and passed it on to another lot, still higher up, until it reached the men at the top, who carried it away and dumped it.”

Sending shock waves into the earth, scientists created a seismic profile of the waterway, which was 1.25 miles long and about 100 feet wide—just wide enough for two war galleys to pass. Analysis of sediment within the canal confirmed that the structure had only been used for a brief period of time. “The Persians did not think of it as a monument that would remain for centuries,” said University of Glasgow archaeologist Richard Jones, who is directing research on the canal. “Once their ships were through, that was the end.”

015

American School Gets New Director

Stephen Tracy Takes Post in Athens

Stephen V. Tracy, a professor of ancient history at Ohio State University, has been appointed director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Tracy (shown at right in the photo below, with outgoing director James D. Muhly [center], and Muhly’s wife, Polymnia) has been associated with the school since 1966, when he wrote his dissertation there under a grant from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

The author of The Story of the Odyssey (Princeton University Press, 1990), Tracy is currently writing Athens and Macedon: Attic Letter-Cutters of 300 to 229 B.C.. He is also part of an international team of scholars preparing the latest edition of Inscriptiones Graecae, volumes 2–3.

Tracy’s predecessor, James D. Muhly, a member of Archaeology Odyssey’s Editorial Advisory Board, served as the school’s director since 1997. Muhly told Archaeology Odyssey that he will begin a new excavation project this summer at the Lasithi plateau in central Crete.

015

OddiFacts

Ancient Bleach

The fullo, or ancient Roman laundry man, produced whiter whites by immersing linens in vats of stale urine. A big pot placed outside the laundry’s door did double duty as a public urinal and bleach collector.

Death Most Foul
Was the Alpine Iceman Murdered?

More than a decade after his discovery, Oetzi the Iceman is still in the news.