26 JUILLET 2022 NEWS
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ISRAEL – 
Jerusalem - Installing an elevator doesn't normally involve a 2,000-year plunge into an ancient city's history. But in Jerusalem, even seemingly simple construction projects can lead to archaeological endeavors. Archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem say they have made numerous discoveries, including an ornate first-century villa with its own ritual bath, after a project began to increase access for disabled people to Jerusalem's Western Wall. During their dig, the archaeologists carefully peeled back successive layers of construction and debris that had accumulated over two millennia, over 9 meters (30 feet) in total. Historical waypoints included Ottoman pipes built into a 2,000-year-old aqueduct that supplied Jerusalem with water from springs near Bethlehem; early Islamic oil lamps; bricks stamped with the name of the 10th Legion, the Roman army that besieged, destroyed and was afterwards encamped in Jerusalem two millennia ago; and the remains of the Judean villa from the final days before the ancient Jewish Temple’s destruction in the year 70. Archaeologist Oren Gutfeld said they were surprised to uncover traces from Jerusalem’s reconstruction as the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina in the 2nd century. Fragments of frescoes and intricate mosaics from the villa indicated the wealth of the home’s occupants. But upon reaching bedrock, Gutfeld and Haber’s team made one last find: a private Jewish ritual bath hewn into the limestone mountainside and vaulted with enormous dressed stones. The most significant thing about the bath, known as a mikveh, was its location overlooking the Temple esplanade.
https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Elevator-project-in-Old-Jerusalem-leads-to-17316445.php
GRECE – 
Lesvos - On Lesvos, three buildings that are of particular interest to archaeologists were brought to light recently during the excavation of the castle of Agioi Theodoroi, which has been identified as ancient Antissa. The dig, headed up by the Lesvos Ephorate of Antiquities, has uncovered an arched building from the seventh century BC. A great deal of painted and grey and black pottery as well as two earlier rectangular buildings of the 8th and 10th centuries BC were unearthed as part of the dig. This excavation find is of special significance, as it confirms the historical continuity from the Late Bronze Age of Greece (1600 – 1100 BC) to the so-called Dark Ages (11th – 9th century BC) which mark the movements of tribes, such as the Aeolians to the island of Lesvos.
https://greekreporter.com/2022/07/19/seventh-century-bc-artifacts-lesvos/
ISRAEL – 
Jerusalem - In mid-July, Prof. Gershon Galil, a biblical scholar from Haifa University, announced that he had deciphered an ancient inscription found in Jerusalem some 12 years earlier, the earliest and most important inscription discovered to date in Jerusalem.” Since his announcement, fur has been flying. Does the stone found in an ancient temple on the slope below Temple Mount even have any writing on it, or are those just chisel marks? If there is writing on it, what does it say? The experts are divided, with many refusing to comment because they haven’t seen the rock or even decent photographs of it, and because the purported inscription and its interpretation have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. At stake: nothing less than when the Bible was, or may have, been written. This in itself isn’t enough to reject the finding, stresses Prof. Noam Mizrahi of the Hebrew University. Our knowledge of the ancient Hebrew writing system is based on relatively few inscriptions; the discovery of new inscriptions is bound to change our understanding. But Mizrahi feels it is too early to reach new conclusions: the Jerusalem inscription has only begun to be evaluated.
ITALIE – 
Megara Hyblaea - A petrographic and geochemical study of several volcanic millstones, representative of 119 artifacts found in the ancient Greek colony of Megara Hyblaea (Sicily Island) and recording the grinding device evolution from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period, unravelled the volcanoes involved as quarrying and production areas. This was possible also through the comparison with available petrographic and geochemical literature data of ancient volcanic millstones found in the whole Mediterranean. Saddle querns, hopper-rubber, rotary Morgantina- and Delian-type millstones of Megara Hyblaea consist of lithotypes belonging to five magmatic series: Tholeiitic, Na-Alkaline, Tholeiitic Transitional, Calcalkaline and High-K Alkaline. A provenance from the Eastern Sicily, i.e. mugearites from Etna and basalts and basaltic andesites from the Hyblaean Mountains were recognized for all the four investigated grinding devices. By contrast, a sea-trade is involved for several saddle querns made of calcalkaline basaltic andesites and andesites lavas (Aegean Islands) and two Morgantina-type millstones consisting of a calcalkaline rhyodacite ignimbrite from the quarrying site of Mulargia (Sardinia). A wide millstone trade, both local (Eastern Sicily) or maritime (Central-Eastern Mediterranean) was thus constrained through six centuries, from the foundation of the Greek colony up to the destruction of the settlement at the end of third century BCE. Finally, Vulture Volcano (southern Italian peninsula) is the most probable candidate for the only leucite- and haüyne-bearing phonolite of the High-K Alkaline Series.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-16784-1
GRECE – 
- Phaistos - The mystery of the Phaistos Disc has been “solved by 99 percent” says Gareth Owens, a linguist, archaeologist, and coordinator of the program Erasmus of Crete Technological Institute. The Phaistos Disc is a disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete, possibly dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium B.C.). The disk is about 15 cm (5.9 in) in diameter and covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols. The language imprinted on the face of the mysterious disk has never been fully decoded, and its symbols are part of no known alphabet either ancient or modern. Some symbols, however, do bear resemblance to those found in Linear A and Linear B, which were the ancient languages of the Minoans. Linear A has not yet been decoded. Owens says: “We are reading the Phaistos disc with the vocal values of Linear B and with the help of comparative linguistics, i.e. comparing with other relative languages from the Indo-European language family. Reading something, however, does not mean understanding.” According to his data, the disc is a religious text to a “pregnant goddess” that takes shape in the face of Astarte, the goddess of love. “There is no doubt that we are talking about a religious text,” Owens reveals. “This is clear from a comparison made with other religious words from other inscriptions from the holy mountains of Crete. We have words that are exactly the same.” The scholar adds that he suspects that “the Phaistos Disc is a hymn before Astarte, the goddess of love. Words such as those mentioned on the disc have been found on Minoan offerings.” The archaeologist says he believes that one side of the Phaistos Disc is actually dedicated to a pregnant mother goddess while the other is dedicated to the Minoan goddess Astarte.
https://greekreporter.com/2022/07/21/phaistos-disk-mystery-solved/
ECOSSE – 
Lochinver Quarry - The remains of an Iron Age village and metal-working site thought to have been destroyed after a clash with the Romans has been found at a quarry. Archaeologists have found 25 Iron Age buildings at Lochinver Quarry near Elgin, Moray, including the remains of roundhouses, iron furnaces and storage structures.Two cauldrons were found buried one inside the other, and it is believed they might have been placed in a pit at the end of the first century AD to conceal the valuable objects. Burning of wooden buildings at the site is also known to have taken place.
POLOGNE – 
Lewin Kłodzki - Discovering what resembled a sword head lying about 30 centimetres underground, they camouflaged the site and immediately notified archaeologists in Wałbrzych. “It is known that during this period the Piasts and the Bohemians fought battles over this area.“Maybe we are actually dealing with Boleslaw the Brave. It’s a sword from the early Middle Ages. It dates to the early 11th century. It is all there, but in three parts. “It undoubtedly belonged to some knight. Such things were not simply abandoned. Swords were symbols of power of rulers and knights.” Bolesław the Brave was Duke of Poland from 992 to 1025, and was crowned the first King of Poland in 1025. One of the most warlike monarchs in the country's history, he created a vast kingdom based on conquest and conducted long-term conflicts with most of his neighbours: with the Germans over the borderlands, with the Czechs over control of their state and over Moravia, and with the Ruthenians. The exact location is being kept a closely guarded secret to deter treasure hunters from spoiling the archaeological site. Kowalski hopes that CT scans will reveal whether the sword has any inscriptions, which could lead to identifying its owner. At the moment, it is heavily corroded as it was lying directly in the ground not covered by any other material, which has led to significant corrosion.