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The highly anticipated exhibition From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics, opens at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) on February 12, 2015. With some 50 outstanding ancient objects, and more than 100 related documents, photographs, and drawings, this groundbreaking exhibition examines the fascinating process through which archaeological objects are transformed from artifacts to artworks and, sometimes, to popular icons, as they move from the sites of their discovery, to be publicized by mass media and exhibited by museums.

From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics displays a series of spectacular early Mesopotamian objects alongside rich documentation, opening a window onto the ways in which archaeological finds of the 1920s and 1930s were transformed from artifacts into works of art. This process raises fundamental and critical questions: What biographies were initially given to these objects by their discoverers? How were these objects filtered through the eyes and voice of the press before they were seen by the public? How were the objects’ biographies affected by or reflective of the tastes of the time? How were the items presented in museums and received by artists of the period?

And finally, how do they continue to influence artistic practice today? The goal of Archaeology and Aesthetics is to demonstrate that these biographies do not begin and end in antiquity, or span the period from their discovery to the present, but continue to be written—through scholarly inquiry and reconsideration, through museum displays and the relationships they create between object and viewer, and through the ways in which they inspire artists of our time. The modern unearthing of an object is in fact the starting point for a multiplicity of approaches, each creating a better understanding of both the artifact and the people who produced it.

Archaeology and Aesthetics begins with a gallery devoted to a number of early Mesopotamian archaeological sites. Concentrating on the city of Ur and several sites in the Diyala River Valley, the display comprises many now-iconic objects, including a wide array of Sumerian stone sculptures, spectacular jewelry in a variety of precious and exotic materials, and such luxury items as ostrich-egg vessels and bronzes.

These exceptional artifacts are shown with field notebooks, excavator’s diaries, archival photography, and original newspaper clippings, among other archival items, illustrating the ways in which the finds were carefully described and presented to the press, the general public, and the academic community. Selected objects are followed as they are strategically presented to an international audience, effecting their transformation from archaeological artifact to aesthetic item.

The exhibition continues with a gallery devoted to twentieth- and twenty-first-century artistic responses to ancient Mesopotamian objects. As these artifacts began to make their way into museums across pre-World War II Europe and North America, artists including Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, and Willem de Kooning drew inspiration from what they saw as a new kind of energy and vision inherent to the material.

Today, many artists return to the archaeological object to explore its role as a window onto human history and cultures rather than as an aesthetic object. Archaeology and Aesthetics demonstrates this approach with work by Jananne al-Ani, who was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, and lives in London, and by the Chicago-based Michael Rakowitz, who is of Iraqi-Jewish heritage. Both create art expressive of the traumatic loss of human heritage caused by wars and the spreading conflict in the Near and Middle East.

“From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics” runs through June 7 at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Source: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World [February 15, 2015]

A study, carried out by Professor Andrew C. Scott of the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London and Professor Sue Rimmer from Southern Illinois University, reveals widespread fire occurred on Earth more than 80 million years after plants first invaded the land.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Science, indicate that although plants were first detected on land more than 440 million years ago there is only scant evidence of fire at that time.

Professor Scott, said: "What surprised us was that many of these early extensive fires were surface fires burning the undergrowth, as we can see the anatomy of the plants being burned through scanning electron microscope studies of larger pieces of the fossil charcoal."

He added: "This may be because plants were small and were limited in their distribution but over the following 50 million years they diversified and spread across the globe and some of the plants were trees and could have provided a good fuel to burn. Extensive forest fires soon followed, however and we see widespread charcoal deposits throughout the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) Period 358-323 million years ago."

Professor Scott and Professor Rimmer made the discovery after analysing charcoal which was washed in to an ocean that lay across what is now part of present day North America.

The team believes that it was not fuel availability that prevented widespread fire, or climate, but that the atmospheric oxygen levels were too low. It had been suggested that only when oxygen levels rose to above 17% (it is 21% today) that widespread fires would be found. This new data suggests that it was at around 360 million years ago, in the latest Devonian Period, that this threshold was reached and probably never went below this level for the rest of geological history.

This time period defines a new phase of the evolution of Earth System and regular wildfire would have played an important role in the evolution of both animals and plants.

Source: University of Royal Holloway London [October 21, 2015]

The head of an ancient Greek statue of extraordinary artistic and historical value will finally arrive back in Italy on Friday – almost three decades after being illegally ripped from the ground.

The stunning statue had been on display at the J.Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles but was eventually discovered to be Italian property after archaeologists identified one of the statue's beard curls among fragments found at a looted site in Sicily.

The unique terracotta head depicts Hades, god of the underworld. He is shown with a bushy blue beard and curly hair, which still bear a good deal of the blue and red pigments with which they were painted 2,400 years ago.

But the mission to bring Hades home has taken years.

“It was great to be able to work with our Sicilian counterparts to identify the provenance of the head,” a spokesperson for the museum told The Local.

"The process of identifying the head took two years and the museum agreed to give it back in 2013. Since then it's been in storage while we waited for instructions from Sicily for its eventual return. Officials finally arrived to pick up the statue this week.”

The head had been on display in Los Angeles since 1985, when the museum acquired it from Belgian businessman - and long time partner of former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy - Maurice Tempelsman, for $500,000 (€460,000).

Templeman sold the piece through successful London art-dealer Robin Symes, who specialized in fencing looted antiques, often of Italian provenance. In January 2005, Symes was sentenced to 21 years in jail (of which he served a mere seven) for trafficking stolen pieces.

On Friday, the statue will finally take pride of place at Enna's Adione museum, a stone's throw from the site where it was originally taken: an outcome which has satisfied Italians on both sides of the Atlantic.

“We owe it above all to the archaeologists who helped identify that ceramic lock of blue hair among the remains of a fraudulent dig site,” said Italy's Consul General in LA, Antonio Verde.

In January 2014, several other pieces of looted art were returned to Enna's Adione museum by the J. Paul Getty museum.

Items included a two-metre Greek marble statue of Venus, which the museum had also bought from Symes in 1988 for an eye-watering $18 million (€16.4 million).

Former curator of the museum, Marion True, was placed on trial in Italy in 2005, but was acquitted after the charges against her expired in 2012.

But the institution is not alone in giving Italy back illegally acquired objects. In recent years pieces have been returned from other high-profile institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

According to one Italian prosecutor, artworks from more than 100,000 raided tombs worth in excess of €460 million have been illegally taken out of the country.

Author: Patrick Browne | Source: The Local [January 31, 2016]

Opening April 27 (and running until July 24, 2016) at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the landmark international loan exhibition Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs features spectacular works of art created in the 11th through 13th century from Turkmenistan to the Mediterranean.

One of the most productive periods in the history of the region from Iran to Anatolia (in modern Turkey) corresponds to the rule of the Seljuqs and their immediate successors, from 1038 to 1307.

The Seljuqs were a Turkic dynasty of Central Asian nomadic origin that established a vast, but decentralized and relatively short-lived, empire in West Asia (present-day Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey).

Under Seljuq rule, the exchange and synthesis of diverse traditions—including Turkmen, Perso-Arabo-Islamic, Byzantine, Armenian, Crusader, and other Christian cultures—accompanied economic prosperity, advances in science and technology, and a great flowering of culture within the realm.

Approximately 270 objects—including ceramics, glass, stucco, works on paper, woodwork, textiles, and metalwork—from American, European, and Middle Eastern public and private collections are shown. Many of the institutions have never lent works from their collections before. Among the highlights are a dozen important loans from Turkmenistan—the exhibition marks the first time that Turkmenistan as an independent country has permitted an extended loan of a group of historical objects to a museum in the United States.

Under the Great Seljuqs of Iran, the middle class prospered, spurring arts patronage, technological advancements, and a market for luxury goods. In contrast, in Anatolia, Syria, and the Jazira (northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey)—which were controlled by the Seljuq successor dynasties (Rum Seljuqs, Artuqids, and Zangids)—art was produced under royal patronage, and Islamic iconography was introduced to a predominantly Christian area.

Furthermore, a number of artists had immigrated to the region from Iran in response to the Mongol conquest in 1220. Because patrons, consumers, and artists came from diverse cultural, religious, and artistic backgrounds, distinctive arts were produced and flourished in the western parts of the Seljuq realm.

Exhibition Overview

Arranged thematically, the exhibition opens with a display of artifacts that name the Seljuq sultans and members of the ruling elite. In Central Asia and Iran, inscriptions appeared on coins and architecture. Stucco reliefs representing royal guards, amirs, and courtiers serve to evoke the courts of the Great Seljuq rulers whose names did not appear on objects.

In Anatolia, Syria, and the Jazira, names of Seljuq successor rulers and images appeared on a range of objects. Here, the famous 12th-century cloisonné dish bearing the name of Rukn al-Dawla Dawud, a leader of the Artuqids, is featured.

In the second section, the courtly environment and activities associated with the sultans and their courtiers appear on stucco reliefs, ceramics, metalwork, and other media. While depictions of the Seljuq elite on these works were not intended as actual portraits, the distinctive Central Asian facial type was a standard of beauty under Seljuq rule.

The earliest extant manuscript of the Shahnama (Book of Kings)—the Persian national epic—created in Anatolia in 1217 is a highlight of this section. Additionally, the remarkable Blacas ewer, with its myriad details of life connected to the court, is prominently exhibited.

The three centuries under Seljuq rule were also a period of inventions; and the many advances in science, medicine, and technology were reflected in the manuscripts, scientific instruments, and medical implements of the time. Pages from the early 13th-century illustrated manuscript The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices feature some of the fanciful inventions of the Muslim polymath and creative genius Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari, whose inventions ranged from clocks and water wheels to automata (robots).

Also noteworthy is an early Islamic astrolabe. (Among the many things that could be determined by means of this complex navigational instrument was the direction of Mecca, and hence the direction of prayer.) Also on view is an intricate pharmacy box with separate compartments for musk, camphor, and other ingredients typical of the medieval pharmacopoeia.

Seljuq art abounds with depictions of real, mythological, and hybrid animals on objects large and small. Animal combat was a favorite theme in Iranian art. The double-headed eagle was adopted as the standard of the Seljuq successor states in Anatolia and the Jazira. Harpies (composite creatures having the body of a bird and the face of a human) and sphinxes (beasts with the body of a lion, face of a human, and occasionally the wings of a bird) appear frequently.

The exquisite Vaso Vescovali—a lidded bowl engraved and inlaid with silver and decorated with complex astrological imagery—features eight personifications of planets on the lid along with the 12 signs of the zodiac and their associated planets on the base, within a profusion of other ornamentation.

The Seljuqs actively promoted Sunni Islam throughout their territory, building madrasas and mosques, and sponsoring the production of Qur’ans and other religious texts. A number of rare and beautifully ornamented examples of the book arts from the time of the Seljuqs are on view. In Syria, the Jazira, and Anatolia—where the majority of the local population, including some of the ruling elite, was Christian—artifacts bearing Christian iconography continued to be made. And a ritual vessel from Georgia, with a Hebrew inscription, attests to the presence of Jewish populations as well. The same artists often served various religious communities. Hence, the styles and artistic traditions of one group merged with those of another.

The sixth and final section of the exhibition focuses on the funerary arts. A variety of tomb markers, cenotaphs, funerary furniture, and patterned textiles discovered in Seljuq tombs are shown. In a proper Muslim burial, the deceased is wrapped in two or three sheets of plain white cloth; the presence of expensive textiles in a funerary context indicates that popular customs and official practice differed significantly.

The exhibition is made possible by the NoRuz at The Met Fund and the Iranian-American Community.

Source: Metropolitan Museum, New York [April 30, 2016]

Giant replicas of an ancient arch in the Syrian city of Palmyra attacked by Islamic State (IS) jihadists will go on show in London and New York next year, organisers said Monday.

The full-size recreation of the arch from the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel will reportedly made using the world's biggest 3D printer and put on display in London's Trafalgar Square and Times Square in New York in April.

IS seized Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site northeast of Damascus known as the "Pearl of the Desert", in May and beheaded its 82-year-old former antiquities chief three months later.

In September, satellite images confirmed that the Temple of Bel, the main temple at Palmyra, had been targeted by IS as part of a campaign to destroy pre-Islamic monuments, tombs and statues it considers idolatrous.

UN experts said the main building of the temple plus a row of columns had been destroyed.

Alexy Karenowska, director of technology at the Institute of Digital Archaeology in Oxford which is funding the reconstruction, confirmed a Times newspaper report that the replicas would be created for a special world heritage week.

"Reproductions/models of the structure, large and small, will be produced and installed around the world in schools, museums and prominent public spaces," Karenowska wrote in an email to AFP.

The institute's executive director, Roger Michel, was quoted in The Times as saying that the replicas standing 15 metres (50 feet) high were likely to be on temporary display.

"It is really a political statement, a call to action, to draw attention to what is happening in Syria and Iraq and now Libya," he added.

"We are saying to them, 'If you destroy something, we can rebuild it again.'

"The symbolic value of these sites is enormous -- we are restoring dignity to people."

Source: AFP [December 29, 2015]

The reunification of ancient Egypt achieved by Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II—the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom—was followed by a great cultural flowering that lasted nearly 400 years. During the Middle Kingdom (mid-Dynasty 11–Dynasty 13, around 2030–1650 B.C.), artistic, cultural, religious, and political traditions first conceived and instituted during the Old Kingdom were revived and reimagined.

This transformational era will be represented through 230 powerful and compelling masterworks (individual objects and groups of objects) in the major international exhibition Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, opening October 12 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashioned with great subtlety and sensitivity, and ranging in size from monumental stone sculptures to delicate examples of jewelry, the works of art are drawn from the preeminent collection of the Metropolitan—which is particularly rich in Middle Kingdom material—and 37 museums and collections in North America and Europe. This is the first comprehensive presentation of Middle Kingdom art and culture and features many objects that have never been shown in the United States.

“The astonishing continuity of ancient Egyptian culture, with certain basic principles lasting for thousands of years, gives the impression of changelessness,” said Adela Oppenheim, Curator of Egyptian Art. “But the works of art in the exhibition will show that ancient Egypt constantly evolved, and was remarkably flexible within a consistent framework. New ideas did not simply replace earlier notions; they were added to what had come before, creating a fascinating society of ever-increasing complexity.”

Arranged thematically and chronologically, the exhibition opens with a forceful, monumental statue of King Mentuhotep II, carved in an intentionally archaic style that suggests a link to the legendary kings of early Egypt (ca. 3300 B.C.).

Profound changes in the concept of kingship are demonstrated through a series of royal statues that span several hundred years. Early Middle Kingdom pharaohs are often depicted with youthful faces and confident expressions. In contrast, the evocative, fleshy faces and deep-set, hooded eyes of later kings present startling images of maturity and humanity.

During the 12th Dynasty, the construction of pyramid complexes resumes, after a lapse of more than a century. The innovation found in these complexes is exemplified by that of Senwosret III (around 1878-1840 B.C.) at Dahshur, site of Metropolitan Museum excavations since 1990. A detailed 1-to-150 scale model made by Ron Street, Supervisor of the Museum’s Three-Dimensional Imaging, Prototyping, and Molding Studio, will show the original form of the complex.

Royal women were always closely connected to the pharaoh, as evidenced by the placement of their burials and chapels near those of the king. Although less is known about Middle Kingdom queens and princesses, indicating altered or perhaps diminished roles during the era, some of the finest ancient Egyptian jewelry was produced for elite women of the time. Inscriptions and symbolic motifs endowed the jewelry with spiritual power and related to the role these women played in supporting the kings as guarantors of divine order on earth.

During the Middle Kingdom, members of all levels of Egyptian society commissioned a wider variety of works of art and constructed commemorative chapels at significant holy sites; statues of squatting figures rendered in a cubic, block-like form and statues in an attitude of prayer originate during this period.

Thematic groupings of artifacts from domestic settings, tombs, and temples reveal the breadth of artistic expression, evolution of styles, and the transformation of many aspects of Egyptian culture and religion. First attested in the Middle Kingdom are a variety of intriguing, protective magical objects, notably some that were believed to shield pregnant women and young children. Among them are curved hippopotamus tusks that are unique to this era and are covered with images of beneficial supernatural beings.

The family was always a central element of ancient Egyptian culture, but in the Middle Kingdom larger groups of relatives are depicted together on stelae and sculptures. One remarkable stela on view features depictions of 30 individuals. Others include poignant groupings of mothers and their young children.

Significant changes in afterlife beliefs during the Middle Kingdom are manifest in new kinds of objects present in burials. Intricately and finely rendered miniatures of painted wood (so-called models) from the tomb of the chancellor Meketre (ca. 1980–75 B.C.), excavated by the Metropolitan in 1920, depict food production, manufacturing, and journeys by boat; they are displayed in several sections of the exhibition.

During the Middle Kingdom, the god Osiris gained importance as a funerary deity and, from then on, the dead at all levels of society became manifestations of the god. Because Osiris functioned as the ruler of the underworld, certain symbols and regalia that had been the sole prerogative of the reigning king were appropriated for non-royal use: mummies sometimes had a uraeus on the brow (a stylized cobra usually seen on a pharaoh’s crown), and a flail (a standard attribute of the pharaoh) could be placed inside a coffin. Canopic jars, which held the organs of the deceased, became much more ornate in the Middle Kingdom. With lids in the form of human heads, the vessels are small sculptures in their own right.

As devotion to Osiris increased, his cult center at Abydos (north of Luxor) gained prominence. Annual processions were held between his temple and his supposed burial place in the desert to the west. To participate eternally in these elaborate rites and ensure their afterlife, individuals at many levels of society erected memorial chapels—some with outstanding artworks—for themselves and their families along the procession route.

Deity temples—largely built of fragile mud brick in the Old Kingdom—were transformed dramatically during the Middle Kingdom, when pharaohs commissioned decorated stone temples throughout the country. Decoration included spectacular sculpture and reliefs depicting the pharaoh presenting offerings to and revering deities, as well as statues of the gods.

Colossal statues were first made during the Old Kingdom, but they became much more common during the Middle Kingdom. Portions of colossal statues will be displayed throughout the exhibition, with the largest in scale being presented at its conclusion: a monumental head of pharaoh Amenemhat III that was transported to the Delta city of Bubastis and reused by later kings. The same happened to the colossal statue of a mid-Dynasty 12 king, on loan from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, and on view in the Museum’s Great Hall. Pharaohs after the Middle Kingdom reused the monuments of their predecessors, particularly those of the Middle Kingdom, both for economy and to link themselves to the past.

General knowledge of the history of the Middle Kingdom—the achievements of its artists, its religious beliefs, burial customs, and relationships with other lands—stems in large part from Metropolitan Museum sponsorship of numerous excavations at Middle Kingdom sites including Deir el-Bahri (1920–31), Lisht (1906–34, 1984–91), and Dahshur (1990–present).

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art [September 26, 2015]

Clues to what became of North Carolina's fabled Lost Colony could lie in a waterfront tract where developers once wanted to build thousands of condos - and now, one of those would-be developers is seeking millions of dollars to preserve the property.

The effort to save the 1,000 acres in rural Bertie County is in an early stage. Even the environmental group that developer Michael Flannelly hopes will help hasn't seen the property yet. But Flannelly said he's optimistic that his vision will eventually become a reality.

"I want to see the site preserved," said Flannelly, who lives on a boat that's usually docked in Norfolk, Virginia, or near his land in Bertie County. "I think it would make a fantastic place for people to come."

The mystery of the Lost Colony - England's first settlement in North America - has intrigued historians and the popular imagination for centuries.

In 1587, 116 English settlers landed on Roanoke Island, led by explorer John White. He left them there when he sailed back to England that same year for more supplies. Delayed by war between England and Spain, he didn't return until 1590 - and when he did, he discovered the entire colony had simply vanished.

White knew the majority had planned to move "50 miles into the maine," as he wrote, referring to the mainland. The only clues he found about the fate of the other two dozen were the word "CROATOAN" carved into a post and "CRO" lettered on a tree trunk, leading historians to believe they moved south to live with American Indians on what's now Hatteras Island.

But some archaeologists now suspect that at least some of the Roanoke colonists found their way to the inland site south of the Chowan River bridge, roughly 50 miles from Roanoke. It first came to light in 2012, when researchers at the British Museum in London announced they had found a drawing of a fort that had been obscured under a patch on a map of Virginia and North Carolina drawn by White in the 1580s.

The drawing placed the fort in an area of Bertie County where archaeologists had found colonial-era English pottery and signs of a Native American village several years earlier during a dig that the state required before Flannelly and his partners could get permits for the subdivision that was never built. Archaeologists have since found further evidence on the tract, dubbed Site X, including bale seals used to verify cloth quality and 16th-century nails.

Before the site can be preserved, Flannelly must buy out his former development partners.

Flannelly estimates it will take $4 million to $5 million, along with a conservation group willing to help raise the money and preserve the land. To any cynics who suspect Flannelly is doing this only for the money, he says he would get 8 percent of any sale, plus a tax credit. And the proposed buyout is far less than the $10 million Flannelly says the developers paid for the property.

A spokesman for the company, Forest City, said in an email that officials know about the archaeological finds but have no other updates about the status of the property. Forest City no longer works in land development, spokesman Jeff Linton said.

Flannelly said that when archaeologists uncovered the property's historical significance, he insisted that those areas be cordoned off as green space and not developed.

Flannelly personally owns 15 acres that include the possible Lost Colony site, but said he didn't know about the artifacts when he chose that land for his own home. "They felt the same I did," he said of the settlers. "That's the best piece of property on the whole tract."

He has turned to North Carolina's Coastal Land Trust, a nonprofit that has preserved more than 65,000 undeveloped acres in 31 counties since 1992. Lee Leidy, attorney and northeast regional director for the trust, said officials there hope to view the property later this month.

"It's fascinating," she said. "It's one that we're very excited to take a look at and learn more about."

But raising funds to preserve the land presents a challenge, since limited conservation dollars must cover many projects, she said.

"If it's done properly, I think it could be tremendous," said Arwin Smallwood, who wrote "Bertie County: An Eastern North Carolina History" and chairs the history department at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro. "Right now in Bertie County, you can have a true sense of history and what the landscape was like."

Tourists travel by the thousands to Dare County, home of the outdoor performance of "The Lost Colony" at an outdoor amphitheater on Roanoke Island. Now Bertie County residents have adopted the settlers as their own as well. More than 300 people attended the town of Windsor's first Lost Colony Festival in April, said Billy Smithwick, the town fire chief and tourism manager. In addition, the county is acquiring 137 acres for a nearby park.

"I think it would be quite a tourist attraction," said Smithwick. "The Lost Colony is the greatest mystery in history that there is."

Author: Martha Waggoner | Source: Associated Press [July 22, 2016]

Working closely with the U.S. Forest Service and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, an international team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation has begun to piece together an archaeological and historical narrative of how the crew of the wrecked 19th century Russian-American Company sailing ship Neva survived the harsh subarctic winter.

"The items left behind by survivors provide a unique snapshot-in-time for January 1813, and might help us to understand the adaptations that allowed them to await rescue in a frigid, unfamiliar environment for almost a month," said Dave McMahan of the Sitka Historical Society.

McMahan is the principal investigator for the NSF award, which was made by the Arctic Sciences Section in NSF's Division of Polar Programs.

The wreck of the frigate Neva, which occurred near the city of Sitka, has been surrounded by stories and legends for two centuries. Although survivors eventually were rescued and taken to Sitka, few accounts of their experience were collected or published. No official records relating to the wreck and its aftermath have been discovered.

The researchers are seeking to verify the wreck location and confirm the site of a survivor camp. They also hope that Tlingit oral history will add to the story and help to place the wreck in a broader context.

The NSF-funded work stems from a 2012 survey project by the U.S. Forest Service, the Alaska Office of History and Archaeology and the Sitka Historical Society. At that time, archaeologists discovered caches of Russian axes at a location they predicted to be the survivor camp.

The archaeological team--which includes members from Russia, the U.S. and Canada--believes articles they found over the past two years represent the everyday tools used by 26 shipwrecked members of the Neva's crew. Those crewmembers survived for almost a month in the winter of 1813 by foraging and gathering materials that washed ashore from the wreck.

In July, researchers discovered at the campsite a series of hearths with early 19th century artifacts such as gun flints, musket balls, pieces of modified sheet copper, iron and copper spikes, a Russian axe, and a fishhook fashioned from copper. Well-preserved food middens--or refuse heaps--will allow reconstruction of the foraging strategies the sailors used to survive.

Gun flints found at the site appeared to have been used by survivors to used start fires, by striking them against steel. Historical accounts credit a firearm used in this manner with helping save the crew from hypothermia. Physical evidence indicates the survivors tried to whittle down musket balls to fit a smaller caliber weapon, such as a flintlock--most likely the same firearm mentioned in the historical accounts. Some of the copper spikes recovered by archaeologists had been broken through shear stress, such as a wreck would produce. The researchers believe one copper or brass artifact is part of a set of a navigator's dividers, saved by a crewman as the ship violently broke apart over rocks.

The nature of the artifacts seems to strongly indicate that survivors of the shipwreck were active in ensuring their own survival. They modified wreckage in desperation, but with ingenuity.

"Collectively, the artifacts reflect improvisation in a survival situation, and do not include ceramics, glass and other materials that would be associated with a settlement," McMahan said.

Because the wreck occurred in an area of profound cultural significance to the Tlingit people of Sitka, the team did not search for--nor did it inadvertently discover--any graves of those who perished.

A famed vessel

Before its Arctic demise, the Neva was famous as one of two vessels that completed the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe from 1803-1807. The ship later fought in the 1804 Battle of Sitka, a pivotal engagement in the Russian struggle for control over what was then the Alaska territory. After 1808, the ship was in the exclusive service of the Russian-American Company, which Tsar Paul I chartered to establish new settlements in Russian America, primarily Alaska, and carry out a program of colonization.

The Neva came to grief after leaving the Siberian port of Okhotsk for Sitka in late August of 1812, McMahan said. During a grueling three-month voyage, those on board endured water shortages and sickness. Fierce storms damaged the ship's rigging. In mid-November the weakened sailors finally found shelter in Alaska's Prince William Sound and, after much debate, made a desperate attempt to reach Sitka.

In favorable weather, they almost reached their destination before wrecking off Kruzof Island. The wreck killed 32; another 15 had already died at sea. Of the 28 who made it to shore, 26 survived for almost a month before their rescue.

McMahan said the team hopes to continue the investigation next year with a smaller field effort at the camp. The terrestrial archaeology is only one component of research, which also includes underwater work and archival research, he said. Thick kelp that obscured the sea floor and interfered with sonar hampered an underwater survey this season. McMahan and Evguenia Anitchenko, the project's archival coordinator, conducted research in St. Petersburg last September, and plan to do the same later this year in London, where the Neva was built.

In an effort to put together the most complete story possible, McMahan is also encouraging anyone with information or oral history pertaining to the Neva to contact him through the Sitka Historical Society. "One goal of the research is to replace some of the myths and 'lore of the sea' with scientific findings," he said.

Longer-range plans for the project include a "virtual museum" with 3-D scans of artifacts, along with a short film that can be used in local educational curricula.

Source: National Science Foundation [September 10, 2015]