Ancient trade in ostrich eggs investigated

Archaeologists and scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Durham and the British Museum are using cutting edge technology to crack a conundrum surrounding the ancient trade in ostrich eggs.

Carved ostrich egg from Isis Tomb, Vulci (Etruria), BM1850, 0227.6 
[Credit: T. Hodos/Trustees of the British Museum]

Decorated ostrich eggs were traded as luxury items from the Middle East to the Western Mediterranean during the Iron Age (1200-300 BC).

Several beautiful examples -- both intact and in fragments -- have been part of the British Museum's collection since the nineteenth century.

The eggs were engraved, painted and occasionally embellished with ivory, precious metals and faience fittings. They were found in elite contexts from Spain to Iraq.

The research team wants to find out where the eggs were laid and whether the birds laying them were wild or captive.

Dr Tamar Hodos, Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Bristol's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, said: "Apart from noting their presence as unusual vessels in funerary and celebratory settings, surprisingly little is known about where they actually come from or who decorated them, much less how they circulated."

Carved and painted ostrich egg showing hoplites, BM1850, 0227.9 
[Credit: Trustees of the British Museum]

Using the British Museum's collection of ostrich eggs from the Mediterranean and Middle East, isotopic analyses of strontium, oxygen and carbon in the eggshells are being used to investigate where the eggs were laid and whether the ostriches were captive or wild, by detecting what and where the mother was eating and drinking during ovulation.

Detailed study of the eggshells' intricate decoration via scanning electron microscopy will allow the research team to compare carving techniques, helping them understand how they were created.

Dr Alexandra Fletcher, Curator in the Middle East Department at the British Museum, said: "We really want to find out more about how this trade worked. Were eggs gathered from nests in the wild, given that this was a potentially dangerous activity? Or is it possible that ostriches were kept in captivity to ensure the luxury trade had a supply of eggs readily available?"

The question of captivity is an important one. Images on objects such as cylinder seals from the same period show ostriches as dangerous and fierce creatures.

Ostrich eggshell fragment ready to be analysed under the Scanning Electron Microscope 
[Credit: A. Fletcher/Trustees of the British Museum]

One has an ancient king strangling an ostrich while the bird kicks him in the stomach, for example. It seems, however, that some members of these ancient societies were adept at catching and handling dangerous beasts.

The famous Assyrian reliefs at the British Museum show that royal 'lion hunts' were staged affairs. Captured lions were released from cages directly into the path of their hunters. Could the ostriches also have been captive creatures?

It is hoped that the information held in the ostrich eggshells themselves will tell us more about how they were obtained, decorated and traded, which will in turn reveal more about both the people who supplied these luxury goods and those who coveted them.

Source: University of Bristol [April 12, 2017]

byUnknown

in Archaeology, Europe, Iraq, Italy, Middle East, Spain

April 12, 2017

Ancient trade in ostrich eggs investigated

Archaeologists and scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Durham and the British Museum are using cutting edge technology to crack ...

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'Cultures in the Crossfire: Stories from Syria and Iraq' at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, PA

Nimrud. Aleppo. Palmyra. Ebla. These ancient sites and many others in Iraq and Syria have found their way to the top of international news today, as the destruction of cultural heritage becomes both a by-product and a tactic of ongoing war throughout the region.

Cultures in the Crossfire: Stories from Syria and Iraq features a set of 1st- and 2nd-century CE funerary portraits from 
Palmyra, which demonstrate the complexity and richness of Palmyrene identity [Credit: Penn Museum]

What is really at stake? Why does it matter? What is the human story that accompanies this unprecedented loss? And what is being done to prevent further loss of the material culture, vast human history, and diverse cultural identities in the region of the world long known as the “cradle of civilization”?

Cultures in the Crossfire: Stories from Syria and Iraq, a new special exhibition at the Penn Museum opening April 8, considers these questions. Developed in conjunction with the Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center, the exhibition explores the rich cultural heritage, human diversity, and achievements—as well as the movements and displacements of people and objects caught in the crossfire—through more than 50 objects from the Museum’s exceptional Near East and Mediterranean collections, as well as a range of Arabic manuscripts from the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, music and sounds, and documentary film clips. Contemporary artwork from Syrian artist Issam Kourbaj, interwoven throughout the exhibition, provides an art intervention—a modern-day response to the artifacts and exhibition themes.

The exhibition puts the spotlight, too, on current work being done by the University of Pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution in conjunction with individuals and groups in the Middle East to help combat the loss of irreplaceable cultural heritage. the exhibition runs through November 26, 2018.

Exploring Identities, Scholarship, Daily Life, and the Movement of People

The exhibition surveys the cultural diversity of the region through the millennia, where Arabs, Kurds, Arameans, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Turkmens, Sunnis, Shias, Druze, Ismailis, Christians, Jews, and Yazidis are among the many peoples with unique histories and claims for the preservation of their heritage. The region has rich diversity—and much of the ethnic targeting and cultural heritage destruction has been sectarian in nature. Palmyrene funerary reliefs, a Hebrew tombstone, an eye idol, incantation bowls, and a manuscript page from a Qur’an provide tangible evidence of a long history of religious and ethnic diversity in the region.

Unfathomable to many Americans, in the Middle East people go about their daily lives alongside ancient ruins, inhabit cities that date back millennia, and value their historic neighborhoods and markets because of their association with the past. Everyday items, some thousands of years old, speak to traditions handed down from generation to generation: a drum, a rattle, a pot, a bowl and a ladle, a lute and a trumpet, a Kurdish doll. These items provide insight into the continuity of household and family life.

The fertile crescent has played a key role in intellectual developments for more than 5,000 years, and the exhibition highlights the development of writing and literature, advances in education, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, philosophy, and the arts. A clay tablet bearing early writing, and ancient cylinder seals and stamps for signing documents, are among the Penn Museum collection objects that tell this story. From the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, a selection of illustrated manuscripts on complex mathematics, botany, medicine and surgery, music theory, astronomy, and more, bear witness to the intellectual flourishing in the region.

Long a land of cross-cultural interactions, the region that is now Iraq and Syria has experienced waves of migrations of people and been a trading center throughout history. Gold ornaments, ivories, coins, glass pitchers and containers, and a mosaic panel are among the ancient materials that speak to a long history of cultural interaction, trade, influence, and migration under the rule of multiple empires.

A Contemporary Perspective: Through the Art of Issam Kourbaj

Syrian-born artist Issam Kourbaj offers an “art intervention” via stand-alone artworks installed throughout the exhibition. Taken together, the seven works create a space to contemplate the tragic current events in the region. From Strike i, ii, and iii, a series of video installations featuring a performance of burning matchsticks, to Dark Water, Burning World (2016), an installation of boats repurposed from old bikes’ mudguards and inspired by 5th century BCE Syrian boats, to Seed (2016), an installation of a soft children’s toy caught in a hand grinder clamped to a tall stand, with seeds below, Kourbaj’s works reflect upon the human suffering, despair, struggle—and hope—in his native land.

Mr. Kourbaj’s work has been widely exhibited internationally. Sound Palimpsest, a collection of his sketches, inspired in part by the Epic of Gilgamesh and also by language, war and memory, was acquired by the British Museum in 2008. His current traveling installation, Another Day Lost, based on Syrian refugee camps, was exhibited in London, New York City, Dubai, Cambridge, UK, Budapest, and Philadelphia, in 2015 and 2016. He was trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Damascus, the Repin Institute of Fine Arts in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and at Wimbledon School of Art (London).

Taking Action

The Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center has been involved in a number of projects over the years, working closely with Syrians and Iraqis to identify, monitor, and find ways to preserve cultural heritage of importance to local communities and at risk of destruction. It is not an easy task. Woven throughout the exhibition are stories of some of this work: at Ebla in Syria; at Erbil, and Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan; at a mosaic museum in Ma’arra, Syria; and with a refugee community in northern Syria.

Stewardship of Museum collections is another kind of action to preserve cultural heritage; in the gallery adjacent to Cultures in the Crossfire, the Penn Museum reopens its popular In the Artifact Lab conservation exhibition and program with a new name and an expanded focus: The Artifact Lab: Conservation in Action. Beginning April 8, Museum conservators will be concentrating on ancient art and artifacts of the Middle East, working on objects in a lab behind glass, with open window times when guests can ask questions several times each day.

About the Penn Cultural Heritage Center

Dedicated to supporting cultural heritage initiatives, the Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC) at the Penn Museum brings considerable experience in training, capacity building, and basic research about cultural heritage and cultural policy. It has led several projects in conjunction with the U.S. government, including a research partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Mission to UNESCO to increase the empirical information known about the World Heritage program as it exists in the United States and abroad. PennCHC’s capabilities are enhanced by the world-class archaeological and anthropological faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and the curators of the Penn Museum. Dr. Brian Daniels, Director of Research and Programs at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, is the Center’s principal coordinator for the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq Project (SHOSI).

Source: Penn Museum [April 08, 2017]

byUnknown

in Exhibitions, Iraq, Syria, Travel, USA

April 08, 2017

'Cultures in the Crossfire: Stories from Syria and Iraq' at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, PA

Nimrud. Aleppo. Palmyra. Ebla. These ancient sites and many others in Iraq and Syria have found their way to the top of international news t...

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Violence less widespread in ancient Mesopotamia than previously believed

Analysis of the bone remains in ancient Mesopotamia suggests that physical violence in the area was less common than suggested by historical sources, argues bioarchaeologist Dr. Arkadiusz Sołtysiak.

Skull with traces of healed trauma (the arrow) from Tell Majnuna, Syria, late Chalcolithic (c. 3,500 BC)
[Credit: A. Sołtysiak]

Dr. Sołtysiak from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, reviewed all publications concerning the burial grounds in Mesopotamia, the ancient land in the Middle East, located in the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates (mainly present territory of Iraq and Syria).

Analysed skeletons come from the period covering 10 thousand years, from the Neolithic, i.e. the introduction of agriculture - to the present day, the beginning of the 20th century.

The publications collected by Sołtysiak contain information on more than 1,200 skeletons. The scientist focused on descriptions of traces of healed skull injuries - injuries that did not directly lead to death. Traces of such injuries followed by recovery are much easier to identify than traces of a fatal injury (which are often very similar to the changes occurring after death, for example due to a specific funerary ritual or damage to the bones in the tomb).

"The incidence of such injuries in Mesopotamia is clearly lower than in other parts of the Middle East, and clearly decreases with the formation of the first states" - Arkadiusz Sołtysiak said in an interview with PAP. The scientist also found that most of the healed head injuries occured in the outskirts of Mesopotamia, with almost no such cases in the central part. Historically, the risk of skull injury for the average inhabitant of Mesopotamia was therefore low, significantly lower than in Armenia and the Levant, the scientist believes.

Map of Mesopotamia showing location of sites mentioned in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology paper 
[Credit: A. Sołtysiak]

This fact - according to the researcher - may be the result of the existence of a strong, centralized state authority. "The authorities were able to effectively minimize violence within a single state organism. The rulers had the right to administer justice, and ensured that any conflicts between the subjects would not lead to violence". suggested the bioarchaeologist.

"Many texts from ancient Mesopotamia contain colourful descriptions of wars and other physical atrocities, such as mass beheadings or stripping the skin. Meanwhile, bioarchaeology research paints the picture of a community, in which physical violence appeared to be rather uncommon", noted the researcher .

The number of cemeteries from the last 10 thousand years that had been studied and described by scientists, proved to be surprisingly small. To date, researchers have published data on the bone remains from only 25 cemeteries.

"This shows that the degree of development of bioarchaeology in Mesopotamia is quite low, especially when compared to Europe or North America", commented Sołtysiak. There are several reasons for this situation, the main one being that Syria and Iraq are politically unstable. "The work of archaeologists in these countries is often impossible due to armed conflicts", he added.

The results of Arkadiusz Sołtysiak's research have been published in a special issue of International Journal of Osteoarchaeology dedicated to violence.

Source: PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland [April 06, 2017]

byUnknown

in Anthropology, Forensics, Iraq, Middle East, Syria

April 06, 2017

Violence less widespread in ancient Mesopotamia than previously believed

Analysis of the bone remains in ancient Mesopotamia suggests that physical violence in the area was less common than suggested by historical...

Read More