Vikings in the News!!

In Ireland a re-date has pushed back the date of a recently discovered burial site. Irish hyperbole ensues.

Researchers said a journey back to 7th century Ireland could reveal some surprising
similarities to recent boom times in the country.

Dr Aidan O’Sullivan of UCD school of archaeology said: “This society that emerges out of the darkness of late prehistory was the first Celtic Tiger economy.

It's fun though. Ireland before the Scandinavians messed it up.

not that there is any Norse DNA in the present population. No sir. We're all Celts here.

3,000 year old Irish woman found

Body found in bog - or at least the legs. Body may be 3000 years old and is probably a human sacrifice.

Hi-Tech Saints

This is amazing. Using new laser technology restorers working in the catacombs of Rome have discovered and restored icon paintings of Sts Peter and Paul, and several others. These are the oldest such icons yet discovered dating from around AD 375 or so.

For me, here is the amazing part, using the lasers to burn through several inches of calcium deposits without damaging the paintings:

Using the laser technique, restorers were able to sear off all the deposits by setting the laser to burn only on the white of the calcium carbonate; the laser's heat stopped when it reached a different color. Researchers then easily chipped off the seared material, revealing the brilliant ochre, black, green and yellow underneath, Mazzei said.

We will probably never invent a time machine, but short of that this will do. I can't wait to see what we can do ten or twenty years from now.

Mummies

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mummy in possession of money must be in want of more mummies.

And we now have more mummies. Complete with funerary equipment.

The ubiquitous Zahi Hawass has struck again.

I know. That first line makes no sense, unless you have read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

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Walls of Jerusalem found

Now for something having nothing to do with American politics. Archaeologists have found a portion of the walls of ancient Jerusalem dating back 2100 years to the era of the Second Temple. Here's the story and here's my favorite part of it:

The walls were first located through tunnels by 19th Century researchers, whose beer bottles were also found.

Modern archaeology and the underground

Underneath Leavenworth, Kansas, is a separate little city, complete with a street, windows, and doored storefronts. The TV reporter suggests it had something to do with the Underground Railroad, which makes no sense. A commentator on Aol.com gives a more likely explanation: out on the frontier, as a rip-roaring cowtown attempted to become safe for a proper middle class, saloons, brothels and other vice businesses literally went underground. The decent folk could walk around topside, being proud of their decent little town, while down below all hell was carryin' on.

What do you think?

World's Earliest Church?

Jordanian archaeologists have reported an intriguing discovery:

"We have uncovered what we believe to be the first church in the world, dating from 33 AD to 70 AD," the head of Jordan's Rihab Centre for Archaeological Studies, Abdul Qader al-Husan, said.
***

"We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians -- the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ," Husan said.

These Christians, who are described in a mosaic as "the 70 beloved by God and Divine," are said to have fled persecution in Jerusalem and founded churches in northern Jordan, Husan added.

Not the least interesting fact here is that it was made in a Muslim country by that country's own archaeologists who are fully aware of the import of their discovery and are clearly proud of it.