Gold coin may be key to solve Sweden's 'Pompeii'

Swedish archaeologists found a rare and valuable golden coin from ancient Rome on Monday. And they think it may explain a key part of the Sweden's history.

Archaeologists found the coin on Monday at a site on the island of Öland that's been compared to Italy's Pompeii. 

A small team of archaeologists at Kalmar County museum, in collaboration with Lund University, has been digging at the site for the past three years. The team is studying the Migration Period in Scandinavian history, from about 400 to 550 AD, centuries before the Viking Age.

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Archaeology: Fifth century Christian basilica found in Bulgaria’s Bourgas

Archaeologists working in the Kraimorie area of Bourgas on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast have found a Christian basilica said to date from the fifth century.

The discovery of the early Christian basilica is a rare one for Bulgaria, according to Milen Nikolov, leader of the Bourgas Regional History Museum team that made the find.

The church building is 19.5 metres long and 15 metres wide.

At the site, the archaeological team found a chamber for storing relics and a holy water vessel.

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Archaeologist try to unlock secrets of Pictish stone

Archaeologists have released details on what they have described as the most important Pictish stone find to have been made in Moray in decades. 

The Dandaleith Stone [Credit: Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service] 

Weighing more than a ton and stretching to 1.7m, the Dandaleith Stone dates from the 6th to 8th Centuries and was uncovered during the ploughing of a field near Craigellachie in May 2013. 

Because of sensitivities around the location as well as the issue of having to work out how to remove a stone of its size - and where to move it to - archaeologists have revealed little about the find until now. 

The stone was removed from the field in April this year and taken to the Graciela Ainsworth Sculpture Conservation workshop in Leith for assessment. 

Once this work is completed, the stone will be put on display at Elgin Museum, possibly next year.

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Excavation of ancient well yields insight into Etruscan, Roman and medieval times

Caption: This image shows Nancy de Grummond and her team. Clockwise from top: Florida State University Department of Classics alumni Nat Coombes, Tyler Haynes and Ellie Margadant; Nancy de Grummond, the M. Lynette Thompson Professor of Classics at Florida State; and Cheryl Sowder, professor of art history at Jacksonville University.

Credit: Florida State University

During a four-year excavation of an Etruscan well at the ancient Italian settlement of Cetamura del Chianti, a team led by a Florida State University archaeologist and art historian unearthed artifacts spanning more than 15 centuries of Etruscan, Roman and medieval civilization in Tuscany.

"The total haul from the well is a bonanza," said Nancy de Grummond, the M. Lynette Thompson Professor of Classics at Florida State. De Grummond, who has performed work at the site since 1983, is one of the nation's leading scholars of Etruscan studies.

"This rich assemblage of materials in bronze, silver, lead and iron, along with the abundant ceramics and remarkable evidence of organic remains, create an unparalleled opportunity for the study of culture, religion and daily life in Chianti and the surrounding region," she said of the well excavation that began in 2011, which is part of a larger dig encompassing the entire Cetamura settlement.

A July 4 news conference at Italy's National Archaeological Museum in Siena drew a standing-room-only crowd as de Grummond and her team reported on their findings from the well excavation over the past four years. Among the most notable finds: 14 Roman and Etruscan bronze vessels, nearly 500 waterlogged grape seeds and an enormous amount of rare waterlogged wood from both Roman and Etruscan times.

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"Truly unexpected" pink granite boulder of ancient Scottish Picts revealed in Moray

A symbol stone of the Picts who occupied Scotland centuries ago could be unique, say archaeologists in Moray

A huge pink granite boulder from the Picts who lived in the north and east of Scotland hundreds of years ago, incised with a large eagle and a mirror case in a “truly unexpected” set of symbols, has been revealed to the public more than a year after it broke a farmer’s plough near Craigellachie.

Spanning more than 1.7 metres and weighing more than a ton, the Dandaleith Stone was originally reported as a “rather large stone with some sort of carving” by the landowner, who reported the solid relic to Aberdeenshire Council's Archaeology Service in May 2013.

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Elite Turkic warrior burial discovered in Kazakhstan

Horse remains. Photo courtesy of "Akmola Media Ortalygy".

An archeological expedition in Zhaksy District of Akmola Oblast has discovered a burial of a warrior of the Turkic period belonging to 6-7 centuries AD.

The international expedition worked on the site on the territory of Zaporizhzhya rural district, near the village of Novochudnoye from 7 to 20 July, Tengrinews reports citing Akmola Media Ortalygy.

There were two mounds and the archeologists fully excavated both of them on July 18. One of them, in the north-western part of the burial, contained the remains of a warrior, who was enveloped in birch bark. During the examination of the burial, remains of arrowheads made of iron, weapons and a bronze earring were discovered. 

For more information see:http://en.tengrinews.kz/science/Elite-Turkic-warrior-burial-discovered-in-Kazakhstan-255136/
Use of the Tengrinews English materials must be accompanied by a hyperlink to en.Tengrinews.kz

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Une nécropole mérovingienne complète mise au jour à Évrecy, dans le Calvados

Une équipe de l'Inrap intervient sur prescription de l’État à Évrecy, sur le site de Saint-Aubin-des-Champs, dans le cadre de l’aménagement d’une zone résidentielle par la société Edifidès. En 2013, un diagnostic avait préalablement permis de détecter la présence inédite d’une nécropole datée entre la fin de l’Antiquité tardive et le haut Moyen Âge, soit des V^e, VI^e et VII^e siècles. La fouille, débutée depuis la mi-mars, confirme l’intérêt de cette découverte avec la mise au jour d’une nécropole complète de plus de 300 sépultures dont certaines contiennent un riche mobilier. L’étude de ce site fait intervenir plusieurs spécialistes, dont des anthropologues, des céramologues, des spécialistes du verre et du mobilier métallique. 

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Viking warriors and treasures are buried beneath Dublin

There are a great number of Viking warriors buried beneath Dublin say archaeologists.

A massive research project, 15 years in the making, has revealed that beneath Dublin’s modern streets lies a trove of buried Viking warriors and artifacts.

Archaeologists say the number of Viking warrior burials in Dublin is astounding. A project cataloguing these burials was began in 1999. Now nearing its conclusion, the project will result in the publication of an 800-page tome titled ‘Viking Graves and Grave Goods in Ireland.’

“As a result of our new research, Kilmainham-Islandbridge is now demonstrably the largest burial complex of its type in western Europe, Scandinavia excluded,” says Stephen Harrison, who co-wrote the catalogue with Raghnall Ó Floinn, the director of the National Museum of Ireland. The museum houses a Viking exhibition, which includes a ninth century Viking skeleton with sword and spearhead, found in the War Memorial Park, Islandbridge in 1934.

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