Family crypt of medieval knight discovered?
“This site just keeps getting more and more interesting, it is turning out to be a real treasure trove of archaeology,” Ross Murray, a former student at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement. “These new finds look likely to be the possible relations of the suspected Medieval knight we found earlier this year. The skull of the skeleton found immediately beneath the location of the knight looks like that of a female and the remains found on the other side of the ornate slab belong to an infant from the same period.”
Link to a photo gallery at LiveScience which has some interesting photos, but not the best descriptions. Two burials, for example, seem to be very close to each other, possibly the same burial event (though the one on the left seems higher up, stratigraphically), but the captions don’t say what they are.
Love beyond the grave: Skeletons discovered holding hands in coffin together
While excavating the courtyard of a former Dominican monastery in experts discovered skeletons of a couple buried together holding hands.
The bodies were discovered in the former cemetery of the monastery and it is believed the double grave dated back to the Middle Ages.
Adrian Rusu, from the Cluj-Napoca Institute of Archaeology and History of Art, said: “It is a mystery – and rare for such burials at that time.
I think this is about the fourth or fifth one of these I’ve come across since I’ve been blogging. Of course, knowing the world of media archaeology it might be the same one over and over. . . .
Anyway, hard to tell how they came to die at the same time, the male had a significant injury but the female apparently had no skeletal tissue damaged. Of course, not every cause of death affects the skeleton so it could easily have been disease or something.
Archaeologists Find Human Bones, Possible Burial Site in Alice
Archaeologists have found human bones at the site of the new multi-use complex being built in Alice, and project leaders believe they may have found an ancient burial ground.
The bones were found April 3 by archeologists who were doing a survey of the location. They have since been removed from the location and are being protected by an archeologist. The archeologist said he does not know how old the bones are, and he doesn’t even know how old the site is.
Video at the link. Actually, it’s not all that big of a deal, but I had to use that title.
Construction crew finds human bones at Ignacio school
The remains of five human bodies were unearthed last week at Ignacio Intermediate School, where a construction crew was laying a sewer line, said La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith.
The bones are believed to be 50 to 75 years old, possibly from a family burial plot, she said.
No foul play is suspected.
Interestingly, they seem to have a pretty good idea what the family name is. This — burials from small, unmarked family plots — has been happening more and more, but this is odd because it’s in an already-developed area. OTOH, I wonder if it didn’t happen quite often in the past as well, but never got reported, or at least not widely. Internet and stuff, donchaknow.
Archaeologist shares preliminary findings in report on excavated human remains
THE human remains found near the House of Taga on Tinian belonged to six individuals.
Australia National University archaeologist Dr. Michael T. Carson told Variety after their Northern Marianas Humanities Council-organized presentation at the American Memorial Park last Saturday that they were able to get a preliminary report on the human remains uncovered on Tinian.
“She was able to indentify six different individuals,” said Carson referring to anthropologist Dr Hsiuman Lin of the Taiwan National Museum of Prehistory.
Variety earlier reported that the remains were unearthed by Carson and his wife Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung within a layer of sediment that is associated with a period roughly 400-600 years ago.
Medieval Knight Found: How Did Scottish Archaeologists Find Skeleton Underneath Parking Lot?
A medieval knight found underneath a parking lot in Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh has archaeologists hoping they’ll find more. The grave of the medieval knight, or possibly a nobleman, was discovered while the site was being cleared for the construction of a new university center in Edinburgh’s Old Town, archaeologists announced this week.
The medieval knight found below the construction site has been dated to the 13th Century. A sandstone slab with carvings of an ornate sword and Calvary Cross marked the grave and was discovered next to the skeleton of the medieval knight.
For a couple of reasons: First, an ad automatically starts — with sound — so you have an automatic irritant. Second, note the caption under the photograph (which is a very cool photograph):
The skeleton, like the one pictured here of a recently discovered mummy in Peru, will tell archaeologist all about who the medieval knight was and how he died.
It’s not even a picture of anything related to a medieval knight!
You can see a photograph of the ACTUAL skeleton here.
Top Ten Afterlife Journeys of Notable People
For more than 500 years, the whereabouts of King Richard III of England, who was killed in the one of the last battles of the War of the Roses, were unknown. A skeleton was dug up in a parking lot in Leicester late last year, and last month, archeologists confirmed the centuries-old corpse belonged to the king. Death wasn’t the end for Richard, as experts study his remains and historians argue where they should finally be put to rest.
It wasn’t over for these historical figures either, as told in great detail by Bess Lovejoy in “Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses,” out March 12. These men’s unfortunate corpses were hacked, stolen, transported across oceans and even stuffed into a trunk and used as a chair.
An interesting addendum to the Beethoven story: Shortly after his first burial, various people claimed to hear music emanating from the vault. After much investigation, some musicology experts determined that the sound was, in fact, all of Beethoven’s symphonies being played. . . .backwards.
It was, in fact, Beethoven. . . de-composing.
Stone Age skeletons unearthed in Sahara Desert
Archaeologists have uncovered 20 Stone Age skeletons in and around a rock shelter in Libya’s Sahara Desert, according to a new study.
The skeletons date between 8,000 and 4,200 years ago, meaning the burial place was used for millennia.
“It must have been a place of memory,” said study co-author Mary Anne Tafuri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge. “People throughout time have kept it, and they have buried their people, over and over, generation after generation.”
Archaeologist: Bodies may be earliest remains found in Charleston
Friday proved to be another fascinating day of discovery at the Gaillard Auditorium construction site.
Archaeologists found coins they believe date back to the late 1600s or early 1700s.
So far, archaeologists have unearthed 37 graves that may date back to the colonial days of the city. Eric Poplin, the lead archaeologist, said Friday the coins were found near the remains of an adult and a child.
“It’s very interesting,” said Poplin. “If the date of the burials is what we think they are — the early 18th century — it would be the earliest group of people that anyone’s had the opportunity to look at here in Charleston.”
There’s a video of the story which doesn’t really add much.
Sheesh, lots of ‘em: Pile of ancient skulls found: Archaeologists make ‘remarkable’ discovery
A pile of ancient skulls was found in Mexico. On Jan. 26, Yahoo! News reported that archaeologists found the skulls which date between A.D. 600 and 850. The discovery could provide a lot of information about the history of the area as the skulls are believed to have belonged to human sacrifice victims. Some think that the discoveries made here could “shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.”
“It’s absolutely remarkable to think about this little nothing on the landscape having potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Meso-America,” said Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University.
Probably more on this later as it’s kind of a gruesome, and therefore interesting, find. One would think they’d be war trophies of some sort, which would fit under the rubric of ‘human sacrifice’.
