The skull of an ancient Egyptian mummy in Colchester is packed with ‘strange bones’, a CT-scan has revealed. The scan on 2,500-year-old Lady Ta-Hathor yesterday also revealed an odd bundle between her thighs, thought to be the remains of her organs. Full results from the scan, made ahead of Ta-Hathor’s display at Ipswich Museum’s new Egyptian Gallery, are expected only after an assessment by a team in Manchester. Yet it immediately showed she was healthy with no bone defects, and had died of natural causes aged in her mid-twenties – not far off the era’s life expectancy of 30. Ta-Hathor’s…
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King Tut died from sickle-cell disease, not malaria, say experts. German researchers at Hamburg’s Bernhard Noct Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI) have rejected a theory put forward by Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, claiming sickle-cell disease (SCD) caused King Tut‘s early demise. A team led by Dr Hawass had said a combination of Khler disease and malaria was the primary cause of Tutankhamun’s death. Yet the German team are calling for more tests on the boy-king’s DNA, which they say will easily confirm or deny their claim. The BNI team have cast doubt on Hawass’ conclusions, after studying DNA tests…
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A Roman skeleton discovered recently at ‘the world’s only well-preserved gladiator cemetery’ has gone on display in York. The skeleton, one of 80 found in the city over the past seven years, went on show at the Jorvik Viking Centre on Tuesday (June 22) and promises to be a hit with visitors. The skeleton is one of the dig’s most important, bearing bite marks from a large carnivore. Experts have claimed it as proof gladiators were made to fight wild animals, such as bears and tigers, in the arena. The excavation itself has aroused huge interest across worldwide, and was…
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It was reported in the Telegraph earlier this month that the documentary researchers who identified and filmed the source of an aqueduct built by Trajan in 109 AD are battling for access to the site with a local farmer, owner of the land on which the ancient site stands. The film-makers, father and son Mike and Ted O’Neill, visited the site with archaeologists during 2009 and their research was announced in January 2010 (read the full story here). However, since the end of January, the O’Neills and the archaeologists they are working with have not been able to gain access…
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On Midsummers day, while more than 20,000 gathered at Stonehenge to celebrate the Summer Solstice,it was revealed a long-lost prehistoric documentwasdiscovered at Salisbury. The fragile deer hide document will put an end to all speculations asto the Neolithic monument’s purpose, revealing that theworld’s most famous stone circle was never a place of worship or a giant calendar. Rather, it was the centre of commerce for Britain’sBronze Agecivilization, as far as 5,000 years back. According to entertainment website ‘NewsBiscuit’, after extensive study, Oxford University archaeologists concluded that the document is in fact a 5000-year-old failed planning application for a vast covered…
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‘Alexander‘ – even today, 23 centuries after his death, his name still has the power to inspire. His achievements have stood the test of time and remain amongst the most remarkable in the whole annals of military history. With an army of typically only around 40,000 men, he conquered the largest, richest and most powerful empire the world had ever seen; and all of this in less than a decade. When Alexander became king, his military career began when he launched a campaign against Macedonia’s northern neighbours. This is a campaign that we know little about, but we can assume…
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It was announced at a press conference yesterday in Rome that the oldest known images of the apostles Peter, Andrew and John have been uncovered in one of the city’s Christian catacombs. The images date from the late fourth century AD and were found in the underground chambers of the catacombs of Santa Tecla, in the south of the city near San Paolo Fuori le Mura on via Ostiense. Professor Fabrizio Bisconti, a university professor at lUniversit Roma Tre and an expert in christian and medieval iconography, told me: Last year the earliest image of Saint Paul was discovered at…
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A team of archaeologists, working with the Kitchenuhmaykoosik Inninuwug First Nation, has discovered a 4,600-year-old burial at the mouth of the Bug River, on the south side of Big Trout Lake in Canada. Big Trout Lake is located in the far northwest of the province of Ontario. Even today its difficult to access. The provinces road system stops nearly 400 kilometres south of the area, making planes the most practical way to get in and out. The lake is located on the same latitude as Manchester, but the climate is far colder. In the winter the temperature can go down…
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Bones found in Magdenburg Cathedral are those of Saxon Queen Eadgyth. In a fascinating lecture that saw science, archaeology and history working together to create concrete evidence of Queen ‘Edith’s’ legend. I went Indiana Ellie and hitched up to Bristol University to catch the breaking news on camera. They discovered that Edith had been reburied up to five times, and that each time her bones were wrapped in a new and expensive silk. Professor Harald Meller recreated the event from Edith’s final reburial: from the silk and 169 beetles found in the casket, he suggested that the beetles were attracted…
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Channel 4’s Time Team has been excavating in the graveyard of a church in the village of Castor, Cambridgeshire and has come up with some compelling evidence that confirms the presence of a large Roman building. Known as the praetorium, the third century building is thought to have been the second largest Roman building in Britain. While the Time Team have not yet reached their conclusions, they have found a Roman mosaic pavement, the foundations of a very large building or set of buildings, which include Roman baths, as well as signs of Saxon occupation after the Romans withdrew from…