- 28 AOÛT :
- FRANCE :
Pfulgriesheim - L' INRAP a mené une campagne de fouille et a pu mettre à jour la structure de l'habitat médiéval de cette contrée ainsi qu' une tombe contenant un squelettes relativement bien conservé. L'étude de ce site permettra de mieux connaître la façon de vivre et de mourir dans cette région de l'Alsace durant la période du Haut Moyen-Age, soit du 5ème au 11ème siècle de notre ère. Voir video FR3:
http://alsace.france3.fr/info/pfulgriesheim-un-chantier-du-moyen-age-64555079.html
- ROYAUME-UNI : Caistor - The volume of writing implements being discovered shows that it was a thriving administrative centre, while the range of remains of animals unearthed makes archaeologists think that animals were being butchered within the town walls. That would mark out the Roman town of Venta Icenorum, as it was called, as a very rural and agricultural place, as in many of the Roman urban centres animals were slaughtered outside the walls and then brought into the town. The voluntary finds washing team were struggling to keep up, such was the volume of coins, pottery and bone being found dating back to the second, third and fourth centuries. Various things are emerging quite strongly and one is the amount of writing going on here. “We are getting lots of styli, the pens used for writing on wax tablets. On a dig in the late 20s they found a lot of them too so it is one of the things that keeps turning up at Caistor. “It really is a centre of administration, and people are writing a lot of things down, probably about taxation. “We might talk about the Romans, but this was a local population who were living here. “This would have been the Iceni population. By 200 years after the Roman invasion everyone would have thought of themselves as being a Roman. But over the next couple of weeks the team is planning to dig deeper and see if they can discover evidence linking the settlement to East Anglia's Iceni queen Boudica. Archaeologists will also be searching for clues to discover the exact date when the Roman streets were originally laid out and if the town continued to be occupied beyond the Roman period.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/eveningnews24/norwich-news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=xNews&itemid=NOED27%20Aug%202010%2017%3A22%3A54%3A810
- SYRIE :
Mar Takla - The national archaeological mission working near the site of Mar Takla (St. Thecla) in Ein Mnin in Damascus Countryside Province, discovered a number of rock-carved halls and some Roman and Byzantine cemeteries dating back to the period between the 1st and 4th centuries. One of the halls was found to include three altars at which religious rituals of a nearby temple were held. The mission also unearthed a number of well-like cemeteries carved into rocks, one of which is a collective cemetery containing 5 tombs. Bronze bracelets and rings were found in the cemeteries among pieces of funereal furniture.Mar Takla site includes a number of rock-carved temples from the Roman Era and that the oldest housing layers in Ein Mnin date back to the first millennium B.C. and to the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods.
http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201008287042/Related-news-from-Syria/syrian-archaeologists-cemeteries-and-altars-from-1st-and-4th-centuries-found-near-mar-takla.html
- EGYPTE :
Alexandrie - Center of Calligraphy at the Egyptian Alexandria Library announced documentation of more than 360 of the ancient inscriptions and calligraphy from Syria and Algeria in the framework of the Digital Library for Inscriptions and Calligraphy Project on Internet. The Center's searching team working in Damascus collected more than 100 archaeological inscriptions from the mosques, religious centers, schools, shrines and tombs, baths and columns. The team also collected more than 260 engravings in Algeria. The collected inscriptions have religious and historical values with cultural and artistic implications which reflect the history of the Algerian cities throughout ages and the development of the inscriptions there. The center announced a similar documentary project in Mecca for 850 inscriptions in the city.
http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201008287044/Culture/alexandria-digital-library-algerian-and-syrian-archaeological-inscriptions-go-online.html
- 27 AOÛT :
- PEROU :
Nasca - American researcher David Johnson has advanced a theory that Nasca Lines may be related to water. He thinks that the geoglyphs may be a giant map of the underground water sources traced on the land. The Nasca plain is one of the driest places on Earth, getting less than one inch of rain a year. While looking for sources of water, he noticed that ancient aqueducts, called puquios, seemed to be connected with some of the lines. The expert said that a high percentage of potable water of the mountain chain moves through underground filtrations and that the pre-Hispanic population knew perfectly the cartography of water. He said that lines like the ones in Nasca would be “a language to communicate where underground wells and aqueducts are located”. Johnson gave each figure a meaning: the trapezoids always point to a well. The circles to a place where the fountain is located. And the complex figures as well. For example, the hummingbird points to a giant well with its beak.
http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=sBGkB+rqR6M=
- TURQUIE :
Stratonikeia - Archeologists have unearthed a sacred spring, providing water to the sacred fountain" in the ancient city of Stratonikeia in Yatagan town of the western province of Mugla. The archaic city of Stratonikeia was established in the 3rd century BC. The acropolis of the city is at the top of a mountain in the south.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=63102
- SYRIE : Sweida - Syrian excavation expedition working at different archaeological sites in Sweida province (south of the country) unearthed a number of archaeological finds dating back to Hellenistic, Byzantine, Nabatean and Roman ages. Archaeological discoveries at al-Najma Palace included pottery finds, rings, beads, lanterns, coins, jars, bronze bracelets and golden earrings. the expedition also uncovered remnants of 2 perpendicular walls to the west of Sweida Theatre, under the Byzantine floor of houses scattered to the northwest of the small theatre (Odeon). At Tel al-Ahmar archaeological site, remnants of stone foundation to the southwest of the archaeological cavern were discovered as well as stone steps carved into the rock leading to the carven. Beads and pottery lanterns and jars dating back to the Byzantine age were found during excavation works at al-Ghariya graveyard. Archaeological finds at Tel Debah Breika included stone, flint and pottery instruments.
http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201008277035/Related-news-from-Syria/syrian-archaeologists-bronze-bracelets-golden-earrings-unearthed-in-sweida.html
- SYRIE :
Tell Brak - Tell Brak (Nagar) is an ancient late Neolithic, Sumerian, Acadian and Middle-Late Bronze Age city on the Upper Khabur River. In 1937-39, the British archaeologist Max Mallowan discovered Al-Ayoun Temple and King Naram Sin Palace built at a time when Tell Brak was a northern administrative center of the Acadian Empire. Studying pottery fragments found helped to date it to the sixth millennium BC as the oldest inhibited city. Architectural ruins at the site indicated to the Uruk settlement which covered an area of 1000 hectares. It flourished during the fourth millennium as center of trade and industry and handcrafts. Near to the northern gate, excavation works uncovered 20 archaeological layers, the most ancient of which dates back to 3800 BC. A huge building with inscribed pottery and instruments inside was also discovered. Archaeological inscriptions discovered in Ebla mentioned that Tell Brak was an important political center in northern Syria during the third millennium BC. A house with two furnitured rooms was discovered to the northwestern side of Tell Brak. Inside the house, silver instruments, lapis stones, carnelian beads, lion-headed eagle and copper rings were unearthed.Tell Brak was the Capital of Hurrians after the end of Acadian Empire. Hurrians rebuilt King Naram Sin Palace in 2000 BC. At that time, Tell Brak was known as religious center and a home for goddess Nagar.
http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201008277034/Culture/syria-tell-bra-archaeological-city-hosted-the-1st-human-civilization.html
- JORDANIE :
Um Al Jimal - The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) has provided Um Al Jimal with a site preservation grant to utilise education and social outreach to raise awareness on the site to ensure its long-term preservation. Continuously occupied from the 1st through the 9th centuries covering the early Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods, Um Al Jimal is currently threatened by neglect. Originally a Nabataean village built in the 1st century AD, the town became a military outpost along the Via Traiana Nova after it was incorporated into the Roman Empire, serving as part of a series of fortifications defending Roman-occupied territory stretching to the borders of modern-day Saudi Arabia. Byzantine churches were built on the site during the 5th and 6th centuries, while its stone barracks, water cisterns and administrative buildings were gradually converted back to a rural village under Umayyad rule around the 7th century. After an earthquake devastated the area in 749AD, the basalt fortifications were left abandoned for around 1,000 years.
http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=29353
- FRANCE : Villeneuve-sur-Lot - Les travaux de réaménagement du parvis Sainte-Catherine ont démarré en début de semaine. Mercredi, les ouvriers et la pelle mécanique ont commencé a creuser les tranchées. Lors d'une percée, ils sont tombés sur deux sépultures près des murs enfouis de l'église originelle datant du XIIIe siècle. Les «zones test» creusées sur 30 cm, montre des sépultures familiales, des os, des briques rouges; au fond les traces d'un mur ( tombeau ?).
http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2010/08/27/895075-Le-chantier-contrarie-par-des-sepultures.html