The Great London:
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A "unique" Roman headstone is the first of its kind unearthed in the UK, experts believe. The tombstone was found near skeletal remains thought to belong to the person named on its inscription, making the discovery unique.

Archaeologists behind the dig in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said they believed it marked the grave of a 27-year-old woman called Bodica. The bodies of three children were also found in the "family burial plot".

Neil Holbrook, of Cotswold Archaeology, translated the Roman inscription on the tombstone, which reads: "To the spirit of the departed Bodica [or Bodicaca], wife, lived for 27 years."

Mr Holbrook said: "The unique aspect is that you can put a name to the person who lies beneath the tombstone."

"What's weird is that the inscription only fills half of the panel, so there's a space left below it. You can see horizontal marking-out lines, so I guess what they were going to do was come back later when her husband died and add his name to the inscription," Mr Holbrook added.

He added that the skeletal remains, including the skull, were being excavated from beneath the headstone.

Mr Holbrook has suggested the name Bodica was of Celtic origin. "Perhaps Bodica is a local Gloucestershire girl who's married an incoming Roman or Gaul from France and has adopted this very Roman way of death," he said.

He said making the "good quality" headstone must have cost "quite a lot of money" at the time.

The headstone's detailed carved pediment - or triangular top section - was particularly interesting, he said.

"Looking at the pediment, those little 'teeth' which we could see from the back are decorative swirls. It looks like a draping of a cloth or sheet, so in many ways the decoration is really fine."

About 300 to 400 Roman tombstones have been discovered in the UK, with the tombstone being the tenth found in Cirencester.

The stone, which is made of Cotswold limestone, was partially cleaned up on-site by the team, but will be taken away for further inspection.

Mr Holbrook said it was "amazing" the tombstone had survived.

"When they built the garage in the 1960s they scraped across the top of the stone to put a beam in. If they'd gone a couple of inches lower they'd have smashed it to smithereens."

Roman tombstones were often taken away and smashed up to be re-used in buildings in Cirencester in the Medieval period.

"This stone might have fallen over quite quickly, and was covered over, and that's why it escaped the stone robbers," Mr Holbrook said.

A total of 55 Roman graves have been found during the dig at St James Place. A further 70 graves were discovered on the same site of the former Bridges Garage on Tetbury Road and a bronze cockerel figurine was found in 2011.

Cirencester, or Corinium as it was known, was the largest town in Roman Britain after London.

Source: BBC News Website [February 25, 2015]

A painting hanging on the wall in an art gallery tells one story. What lies beneath its surface may tell quite another.

Often in a Rembrandt, a Vermeer, a Leonardo, a Van Eyck, or any other great masterpiece of western art, the layers of paint are covered with varnish, sometimes several coats applied at different times over their history. The varnish was originally applied to protect the paint underneath and make the colors appear more vivid, but over the centuries it can degrade. Conservators carefully clean off the old varnish and replace it with new, but to do this safely it is useful to understand the materials and structure of the painting beneath the surface. Conservation scientists can glean this information by analyzing the hidden layers of paint and varnish.

Now, researchers from Nottingham Trent University's School of Science and Technology have partnered with the National Gallery in London to develop an instrument capable of non-invasively capturing subsurface details from artwork at a high resolution. Their setup, published in an Optics Express paper, will allow conservators and conservation scientists to more effectively peek beneath the surface of paintings and artifacts to learn not only how the artist built up the original composition, but also what coatings have been applied to it over the years.

Traditionally, analyzing the layers of a painting requires taking a very small physical sample -- usually around a quarter of a millimeter across -- to view under a microscope. The technique provides a cross-section of the painting's layers, which can be imaged at high resolution and analyzed to gain detailed information on the chemical composition of the paint, but does involve removing some original paint, even if only a very tiny amount. When studying valuable masterpieces, conservation scientists must therefore sample very selectively from already-damaged areas, often only taking a few minute samples from a large canvas.

More recently, researchers have begun to use non-invasive imaging techniques to study paintings and other historical artifacts. For example, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) was originally developed for medical imaging but has also been applied to art conservation. Because it uses a beam of light to scan the intact painting without removing physical samples, OCT allows researchers to analyze the painting more extensively. However, the spatial resolution of commercially-available OCT setups is not high enough to fully map the fine layers of paint and varnish.

The Nottingham Trent University researchers gave OCT an upgrade. "We're trying to see how far we can go with non-invasive techniques. We wanted to reach the kind of resolution that conventional destructive techniques have reached," explained Haida Liang, who led the project.

In OCT, a beam of light is split: half is directed towards the sample, and the other half is sent to a reference mirror. The light scatters off both of these surfaces. By measuring the combined signal, which effectively compares the returned light from the sample versus the reference, the apparatus can determine how far into the sample the light penetrated. By repeating this procedure many times across an area, researchers can build up a cross-sectional map of the painting.

Liang and her colleagues used a broadband laser-like light source -- a concentrated beam of light containing a wide range of frequencies. The wider frequency range allows for more precise data collection, but such light sources were not commercially available until recently.

Along with a few other modifications, the addition of the broadband light source enabled the apparatus to scan the painting at a higher resolution. When tested on a late 16th-century copy of a Raphael painting, housed at the National Gallery in London, it performed as well as traditional invasive imaging techniques.

"We are able to not only match the resolution but also to see some of the layer structures with better contrast. That's because OCT is particularly sensitive to changes in refractive index," said Liang. In some places, the ultra-high resolution OCT setup identified varnish layers that were almost indistinguishable from each other under the microscope.

Eventually, the researchers plan to make their instrument available to other art institutions. It could also be useful for analyzing historical manuscripts, which cannot be physically sampled in the same way that paintings can.

In a parallel paper recently published in Optics Express, the researchers also improved the depth into the painting that their apparatus can scan. The two goals are somewhat at odds: using a longer wavelength light source could enhance the penetration depth, but shorter wavelength light (as used in their current setup) provides the best resolution.

"The next challenge is perhaps to be able to do that in one instrument, as well as to extract chemical information from different layers," said Liang.

Source: The Optical Society [April 13, 2015]

As the detailed 3 month excavation of Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre comes to a close and development of >The Stage gets underway, recent discoveries are poised to completely transform our understanding of the evolution of Elizabethan theatres.

After further careful excavation, it has now been confirmed that the rectangular theatre was purpose built for performance and entertainment, and housed a long, rectangular stage with evidence of an unusual passageway running beneath it.

The early stages of the dig confirmed that the theatre was not the polygonal structure we had anticipated, but this latest set of discoveries give us more detail about this early Elizabethan theatre. The discovery of an oblong stage which is far longer than expected and the mysterious passageway offers a tantalising glimpse into the secrets that are still to be uncovered. The MOLA teams is now embarking on post-excavation work to further explore the relationship between the unusual shape of the stage, the production and staging and the mysterious backstage areas.

Discovering that the theatre was purpose built tells us this was not a repurposed space with a stage added, it was a place where people came to be immersed in entertainment. It had timber galleries with mid and upper areas for those who could afford to spend a little more, and a courtyard made from compacted gravel for those with less to spend.

Throughout findings, archaeologists have also been able to tell that The Curtain Theatre is one of earliest Elizabethan playhouses where people actually paid money to see performances and be entertained. We know this because fragments of ceramic money boxes have been found. These fragments are a really exciting find because the pots would have been used to collect the entry fees from theatregoers and then been taken to an office to be smashed and the money counted. This office was known as the ‘box office’, which is actually the origin of the term we still use today!

The excavation team also found glass beads and pins, these are small but fascinating finds that can offer us a glimpse backstage, as they may have come from actors’ costumes. They also unearthed drinking vessels and clay pipes, which relate to the making merry of revelling theatregoers and actors.

We now know so much more about the theatre than ever before and these discoveries offer a rare and exciting opportunity to explore the new questions they pose.

For now, the excavated remains of the Curtain Theatre, which takes its name from Curtain Road, have been carefully covered over with a protective membrane and a special type of pH neutral sand, while construction of The Stage, a new £750m mixed-use development backed by a consortium led by Cain Hoy and designed by architects Perkins+Will, continues.

A display of the finds will sit alongside the theatre remains as part of a cultural and visitor centre at the heart of the completed development, which will also feature 33,000 sq ft of retail, over 200,000 sq ft of office space, more than 400 homes, and over an acre of vibrant public space including a performance area and a park.

Source: Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) [November 11, 2016]

Saxon remains have been found by archaeologists excavating Berkeley Homes development site on the Royal Arsenal Riverside site.

Oxford Archaeology have uncovered evidence of nearly 3000 years of human activity on the west side of the site which in ancient times would have been a gravel peninsula surrounded by marshlands.

Surprisingly a burial site with 76 skeletons have been found which have been radio carbon dated to the late 7th or early 8th century meaning they are former inhabitants of Saxon Woolwich.

Project manager David Score said ‘It is amazing to find such a large number of relatively well preserved skeletons, despite all the later building on the site over the years. They seem to represent a mixed population with males and females, children and adults present. Only one possible knife was recorded as a probable grave deposit so it seems that the burials do represent an early Christian tradition’.

Previous excavations on adjacent sites have revealed an enormous ditch which was constructed in the late Iron Age which indicates trading with the Roman Empire across the channel.

Archaeologists have also recorded the remains of medieval houses and evidence of clay pipe manufacture in addition to remains from the Victorian gas works housed there.

Karl Whiteman, the divisional managing director for Berkeley, ‘It is incredible to see evidence from so many different time periods still in tact at Royal Arsenal Riverside. These excavations will enable us and the residents of Woolwich to get an even better understanding of what life was like here many centuries ago.”

Author: Mandy Little | Source: South London Press [October 16, 2015]

Researchers have used complex image analysis to uncover annotations that were hidden for nearly 500 years between the pages of England's oldest printed bible.

The annotations were discovered in England's first printed Bible, published in 1535 by Henry VIII's printer. It is one of just seven surviving copies, and is housed inLambeth Palace Library, London. The secrets hidden in the Lambeth Library copy were revealed during research by Dr Eyal Poleg, a historian from Queen Mary University of London.

"We know virtually nothing about this unique Bible -- whose preface was written by Henry himself -- outside of the surviving copies. At first, the Lambeth copy first appeared completely 'clean'. But upon closer inspection I noticed that heavy paper had been pasted over blank parts of the book. The challenge was how to uncover the annotations without damaging the book" said Dr Poleg.

Dr Poleg sought the assistance of Dr Graham Davis, a specialist in 3D X-ray imaging at QMUL's School of Dentistry. Using a light sheet, which was slid beneath the pages, they took two images in long exposure -- one with the light sheet on and one with it off.

The first image showed all the annotations, scrambled with the printed text. The second picture showed only the printed text. Dr Davis then wrote a novel piece of software to subtract the second image from the first, leaving a clear picture of the annotations.

The annotations are copied from the famous 'Great Bible' of Thomas Cromwell, seen as the epitome of the English Reformation. Written between 1539 and 1549, they were covered and disguised with thick paper in 1600. They remained hidden until their discovery this year. According to Dr Poleg, their presence supports the idea that the Reformation was a gradual process rather than a single, transformative event.

"Until recently, it was widely assumed that the Reformation caused a complete break, a Rubicon moment when people stopped being Catholics and accepted Protestantism, rejected saints, and replaced Latin with English. This Bible is a unique witness to a time when the conservative Latin and the reformist English were used together, showing that the Reformation was a slow, complex, and gradual process."

The annotations were written during the most tumultuous years of Henry's reign. The period included the move away from the Church of Rome, The Act of Supremacy, the suppression of the monasteries, and the executions of Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, and John Fisher, as well as the Pilgrimage of Grace, which moved Henry to a more cautious approach.

Dr Poleg was also able to trace the subsequent life of the book, after the point at which Latin Bibles had definitively fallen out of use. On the back page he uncovered a hidden, handwritten transaction between two men: Mr William Cheffyn of Calais, and Mr James Elys Cutpurse of London. Cutpurse, in medieval English jargon, means pickpocket. The transaction states that Cutpurse promised to pay 20 shillings to Cheffyn, or would go to Marshalsea, a notorious prison in Southwark. In subsequent archival research, Dr Poleg found that Mr Cutpurse was hanged in Tybourn in July 1552.

"Beyond Mr Cutpurse's illustrious occupation, the fact that we know when he died is significant. It allows us to date and trace the journey of the book with remarkable accuracy -- the transaction obviously couldn't have taken place after his death," said Dr Poleg.

He added: "The book is a unique witness to the course of Henry's Reformation. Printed in 1535 by the King's printer and with Henry's preface, within a few short years the situation had shifted dramatically. The Latin Bible was altered to accommodate reformist English, and the book became a testimony to the greyscale between English and Latin in that murky period between 1539 and 1549.

"Just three years later things were more certain. Monastic libraries were dissolved, and Latin liturgy was irrelevant. Our Bible found its way to lay hands, completing a remarkably swift descent in prominence from Royal text to recorder of thievery."

Source: University of Queen Mary London [March 15, 2016]

London's relentless building boom has dug up another chunk of the city's history — one with a surprise for scholars of Shakespearean theatre.

Archaeologists are excavating the remains of the Curtain, a 16th-century playhouse where some of the Bard's plays were first staged, before a new apartment tower sprouts on the site. Unexpectedly, the dig has revealed that the venue wasn't round, like most Elizabethan playhouses. It was rectangular.

That came as a surprise, because the best-known fact about the Curtain is that Shakespeare's "Henry V" was first staged here — and the play's prologue refers to the building as "this wooden O."

"This is palpably not a circle," Julian Bowsher, an expert on Elizabethan theatres, said during a tour of the site Tuesday.

The discovery has made Bowsher rethink some of his ideas about Tudor playhouses. He suspects that the Curtain — unlike the more famous Globe and Rose theatres — wasn't built from scratch, but converted from an existing building.

"Out of the nine playhouses that we know in Tudor London, there are only two that have no reference to any construction," he said — including the Curtain. "It's beginning to make sense now."

Where does that leave "Henry V"? Heather Knight, senior archaeologist at Museum of London Archaeology , said the play may still have premiered at the Curtain in 1599, but without the prologue.

"There's a school of thought now that says prologues were actually a later addition," she said.

The Curtain's remains were uncovered in 2011 on a site earmarked for development in Shoreditch, a scruffy-chic, fast-gentrifying area on the edge of London's financial district.

Archaeologists began excavating intensively last month, before construction of a 37-storey luxury apartment tower and office complex named — with a nod to its heritage — The Stage.

They will keep digging until the end of June, and visitors can book tours of the excavations as part of events to mark this year's 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

The site's developers have promised to keep the foundations of the historic theatre on public view and to build a visitor center to display some of the archaeologists' finds.

These include clay pipes that were used to smoke tobacco — introduced to Britain from North America in the 16th century — and a bird whistle which may have been used as a theatrical special effect. It could have featured in the scene in "Romeo and Juliet" — performed at the Curtain — in which the heroine reassures her lover that "it was the nightingale, and not the lark" that he'd heard.

Knight says the Curtain site "has probably the best preserved remains of any of the playhouses we've looked at."

The dig has uncovered the outline of a rectangular venue about 100 feet (30 metres) by 72 feet (22 metres) that could hold about 1,000 people. Workers have uncovered sections of the theatre's gravel yard, where "groundlings" who had bought cheap tickets stood, and segments of wall up to 5 feet (1.5 metres) high.

The new building that will rise on the site — where apartments are being offered starting at 695,000 pounds ($1 million) — is part of a construction boom, fueled by London's sky-high property prices, that is transforming large tracts of the city. In the process, it is creating something of a golden era for London archaeology.

Nearby, work on the new Crossrail transit line has uncovered everything from 14th-century plague victims to Roman sandals.

Knight says the Curtain dig is filling in the picture of one of the oldest and least-known London playhouses, which served as a base for Shakespeare's troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, between 1597 and 1599.

"This will give us real insight into these early playing spaces," Knight said. "It will help us understand the type of building that playwrights were writing for as well as performing in.

"It will also help us understand what type of audience was attending performances in these buildings. And also it'll fill in those gaps that are missing from the historical record."

Author: Jill Lawless | Source: The Associated Press [May 17, 2016]

A haul of valuable coins issued by Roman general Mark Antony have been discovered in a Welsh field - more than 2,000 years after they were buried.

It comes as archaeologists claimed to have found a small Roman fort on Anglesey, North Wales, in what has been described as a "ground-breaking" discovery.

The coins - unearthed by two friends out walking - have been hailed by historians as "a significant find".

Dr Richard Annear, 65, and John Player, 43, found the silver coins dating back to 31 BC buried in a field near the small village of Wick, South Wales.

Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Annear reported the find to curators who were able to lift a small pot containing the coins out of the ground.

A numismatist described the three Roman denarii coins as "worth tens of thousands of pounds".

The rare hoard took place just a mile from another historic find of 130 denarii 15 years ago.

Assistant keeper at the National Museum of Wales, Edward Besly, said: "Each coin represents about a day's pay at the time, so the hoard represents a significant sum of money."

"The hoard's find spot is only a mile as the crow flies from that of another second century silver hoard found in 2000. Together the hoards point to a prosperous coin-using economy in the area in the middle of the second century."

The three silver denarii were part of a 91-coin haul comprising of currency issued by Roman rulers spanning 200 years.

Currency dating back to the reigns of Emperor Nero, 54AD-68AD, and Marcus Aurelius, 161AD to 180AD, were also uncovered in the landmark find.

Senior Coroner Andrew Barkley ruled that the coins are "treasure trove" at Cardiff Coroner's Court.

The items will now be taken to the Treasure Valuation Committee, in London, where they will be independently valued.

Author: Gareth Wyn Williams | Source: Mirror [November 28, 2015]

The bodies of about 800 children aged under six have been unearthed by archaeologists ahead of the construction of a road in Lancashire.

They were among 1,967 bodies exhumed at St Peter's Burial Ground, which opened in 1821 in Blackburn.

The large number of children found is being put down to a lack of good sanitation and medicines leading to a high mortality rate.

Many of them would have died from infections, the archaeologists believe.

Bodies were exhumed from about 30% of the burial ground, which was in "intense use" up to the 1860s, a spokeswoman for Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council said.

Dave Henderson, an expert in the study of bones with Headland Archaeology, said full analysis of the skeletons had "barely started" but the team believed most of the children had died from infections in the lungs and guts.

He said: "They would have died quite quickly so the signs may not turn up in their skeletons."

He said the town was becoming overcrowded at the time as it was "a very large centre for the industrial mills and the population grew very quickly".

The work could "throw light on the lives of ordinary people" outside London, where most previous large studies of this era have been carried out, he said.

Records of 176 memorial stones showed the most common names for girls were Elizabeth and Mary, while John and Thomas were popular for boys.

Among the finds was a "time capsule", containing 16 coins in circulation at the time.

Experts believe one of the men buried at the site was a soldier injured in the Crimean War.

Julie Franklin, finds manager, said objects found in graves - including "some incredibly poignant findings of hands still bearing cheap brass wedding rings, or children buried with colourful glass bead jewellery" - revealed what was important to their loved ones.

Some burials continued in existing family plots at the graveyard until 1945.

St Peter's Church, which would have seated 1,500 parishioners, became dilapidated in the mid-20th Century and was demolished to ground level in 1976.

The Bishop of Blackburn will hold a memorial service this summer and reburials will take place in a different part of the graveyard.

The archaeological work on the area, which will be used for the building of the Freckleton Street link road, was commissioned by Capita on behalf of the council.

Source: BBC News Website [January 26, 2016]

"Heartbreaking" graffiti uncovered in a Cambridgeshire church has revealed how three sisters from one family died in a plague outbreak in 1515.

The names Cateryn, Jane and Amee Maddyngley and the date were inscribed on stonework in Kingston parish church.

It was found by Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey volunteers.

Archaeologist Matt Champion said the project had shown church plague graffiti was "far more common than previously realised".

"The most heartbreaking inscriptions are those that refer to long-dead children," he said.

The Maddyngley graffiti is hidden under limewash near the door in All Saints' and St Andrew's church.

The family lived in Kingston, seven miles from Cambridge, and were tenant farmers who "rarely turn up in parish records", he said.

Mr Champion believes Cateryn, Jane and Amee must have been children because their names are not found as adults in any of the records.

In 1515, there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in London which spread across south east England.

Mr Champion said Cambridge University suspended its classes and large gatherings of people were banned, "just as we see today with the Ebola outbreaks in Africa".

Children were particularly hard-hit and usually hastily buried in unmarked graves.

The graffiti survey was set up in 2010 and is the first attempt to survey pre-Reformation graffiti in churches since the late 1960s.

Volunteers use digital cameras and powerful lamps to reveal previously hidden or faded markings.

At least 60% of the 650 churches surveyed in Norfolk, Suffolk and north Essex have "significant amounts" of graffiti and volunteers have recorded up to 500 pieces in many of them.

The project has confirmed more graffiti is found to have been created during times of pestilence such as the Black Death of 1349 and subsequent outbreaks of plagues.

"It was a votive offering at a time where prayer counted," Mr Champion said.

Source: BBC News Website [February 21, 2015]

A very small treasure hoard – a handful of tiny fragments of beautifully worked Tudor gold – has been harvested from a muddy stretch of the Thames foreshore over a period of years by eight different metal detectorists.

The pieces all date from the early 16th century, and the style of the tiny pieces of gold is so similar that Kate Sumnall, an archaeologist, believes they all came from the disastrous loss of one fabulous garment, possibly a hat snatched off a passenger’s head by a gust of wind at a time when the main river crossings were the myriad ferry boats.

Such metal objects, including aglets – metal tips for laces – beads and studs, originally had a practical purpose as garment fasteners but by the early 16th century were being worn in gold as high-status ornaments, making costly fabrics such as velvet and furs even more ostentatious. Contemporary portraits, including one in the National Portrait Gallery of the Dacres, Mary Neville and Gregory Fiennes, show their sleeves festooned with pairs of such ornaments.

Some of the Thames pieces are inlaid with enamel or little pieces of coloured glass. Despite the fact there is not enough gold in them to fill an egg cup, the pieces are legally treasure that must be declared to finds officers such as Sumnall, who is based at the Museum of London. She also records less valuable finds voluntarily reported under the portable antiquities scheme, and so has a good working relationship with the licensed mudlarks who scour the Thames shore between tides.

Sumnall said they were an important find as a huge amount of skill had been invested in the intricate pieces. “These artefacts have been reported to me one at a time over the last couple of years. Individually they are all wonderful finds but as a group they are even more important. To find them from just one area suggests a lost ornate hat or other item of clothing. The fabric has not survived and all that remains are these gold decorative elements that hint at the fashion of the time.”

Once the pieces have been through a treasure inquest and valued, the museum hopes to acquire them all, still glittering after their centuries in the mud.

Author: Maev Kennedy | Source: The Guardian [December 24, 2015]

An intricately carved gold ring containing a stone engraved with an image of Cupid — a god associated with erotic love — has been discovered near the village of Tangley in the United Kingdom.

In the engraving, Cupid (also known by his Greek name, “Eros”) is shown standing completely nude while holding a torch with one hand. The ring dates back around 1,700 years, to a time when the Roman Empire controlled England. The ring was discovered by an amateur metal detectorist. Researchers who studied it say that it may have been worn by a man or a woman and is engraved with spiral designs that contain bead-shaped spheres.

The image of Cupid is engraved on a stone made of nicolo, a type of onyx that is dark at the base and bluish at the top. The image on the stone “depicts a standing naked adolescent with crossed legs, leaning on a short spiral column; the short wings which sprout from his shoulders identify him as Cupid,” Sally Worrell, national finds adviser with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and John Pearce, senior lecturer in archaeology at King’s College London, wrote in an article published recently in the journal Britannia.

Cupid is shown resting one arm on a column while he holds a torch with the other, Worrell and Pearce wrote. Artistic depictions of Cupid were popular among the Greeks and Romans, and several other finger rings that have stones depicting Cupid are known to exist, the researchers noted. The design of this particular ring indicates that it was created around the fourth century A.D., they said.

A person using a metal detector discovered the ring in December 2013 and reported the finding to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which was established in 1997 to encourage people to voluntarily report the discovery of artifacts.

In England and Wales, amateurs are allowed to use metal detectors to search for antiquities if they have permission from the landowner and if they avoid archaeological sites that have been granted protection by the government. Certain finds (such as those made of precious metal) must be reported to antiquities authorities.

Worrell said that Hampshire Museums Service has acquired the ring, which will be put on display at the Andover Museum in Andover, U.K.

Author: Owen Jarus | Source: Discovery News [November 26, 2015]

After uncovering a castle on a par with the Tower of London underneath the old prison in Gloucester, yet more artifacts have been dug up.

Since the castle was found in December work has been on-going at both the Castle site and around Blackfriars.

Archaeologists have dug a large trench off Quay Street as they explore for more finds both on the castle site and other sites in the city. At the castle further medieval structures have been found on the site.

Andrew Armstrong, archaeologist at Gloucester City Council, said: "From an archaeological point of view this is a hugely interesting and important part of the city.

"It includes the south-west corner of the Roman city of Glevum, the old Roman waterfront, the site of the Norman Castle (the 'Old Castle') which extends throughout the southern half of Bearland car park. It also holds the site of the medieval castle (the New Castle) which extends from the site of the old prison northwards into the Quayside area."

So far medieval pottery has been found on the site as well as oyster shells, work has been on-going at the site Monday, April 4.

Jon Eeles, amateur historian, said: "It is good news that this is being found and dug up but I don't want it flattened and built on. Tourists won't visit Gloucester to see a block of flats but they will visit to see historical remains."

Mr Eeles would is an advocate for keeping the artefacts visible to the public but still protected.

He added: "Bath got very badly bombed in the war, while Gloucester avoided much of it. Bath have managed to show off their history well despite the bombing, in Gloucester we have so much more history but have done a good job of hiding it."

The archaeologists expect to find Roman town houses at the Quayside site.

Chris Chatterton, manager of the Soldiers of Gloucester museum, said: "This site is the perfect microcosm of the history in Gloucester which is so broad. Nowhere else in the county has the history that Gloucester does."

The work is taking place ahead of redevelopment plans of Gloucester around Quayside and Blackfriars. The area extends from Commercial Road in the south as far as Quay Street in the north.

Mr Chatterton added: "It is a genuinely fascinating process and I am very interested to see what they find during the dig. If it is anything magnificent, like the recent dig at the prison site was, it needs to be preserved and protected for people to see."

Author: Ellis Lane | Source: Gloucester Citizen [April 13, 2016]

A gruesome discovery in eastern France casts new light on violent conflicts that took lives — and sometimes just limbs — around 6,000 years ago.

Excavations of a 2-meter-deep circular pit in Bergheim revealed seven human skeletons plus a skull section from an infant strewn atop the remains of seven human arms, say anthropologist Fanny Chenal of Antea Archéologie in Habsheim, France, and her colleagues.

Two men, one woman and four children were killed, probably in a raid or other violent encounter, the researchers report in the December Antiquity. Their bodies were piled in a pit that already contained a collection of left arms hacked off by axes or other sharp implements. Scattered hand bones at the bottom of the pit suggest that hands from the severed limbs had been deliberately cut into pieces.

It’s unclear who the arms belonged to. All the Bergheim skeletons have both their arms except for a man with skull damage caused by violent blows. His skeleton lacks a left arm, the researchers say. They have been unable to determine whether that arm ended up in the pit.

Chenal’s group doesn’t know whether attackers targeted victims’ left arms for a particular reason. The arms could have been taken as war trophies, the team speculates.

Radiocarbon dating of two bones indicates that individuals in the Bergheim pit lived roughly 6,000 years ago. From 6,500 to 5,500 years ago, during what’s known as the Neolithic period, one of the many ways of disposing of the dead in farming communities throughout Central and Western Europe was in circular pits.

Discoveries of human and nonhuman bones, as well as pottery, in these pits go back more than a century. The Bergheim pit provides the first evidence that people killed and mutilated in raids or battles were sometimes buried in circular pits, too, says study coauthor Bruno Boulestin, an anthropologist at the University of Bordeaux in France.

Unusual deposits in Neolithic circular pits, such as attack victims and severed limbs at Bergheim, “may have been more common than previously expected,” says biological anthropologist Silvia Bello of the Natural History Museum in London, who did not participate in the new study. She suspects, for instance, that closer inspection of human bones previously found in circular pits elsewhere in Europe will reveal additional instances of violent deaths from a time when armed conflicts occurred between some communities.

Bergheim’s brutalized victims spice up attempts to make sense of Neolithic circular pits. Many researchers regard these pits as remnants of storage silos that were put to other uses, possibly as receptacles for the bodies of people deemed unworthy of formal burials.

Others argue that a large proportion of pits were dug as graves for high-ranking individuals, whose servants or relatives were killed to accompany them. Or, slaves might have been killed and put in pits as displays of wealth or as sacrifices to gods.

Of 60 circular pits excavated in Bergheim in 2012 in advance of a construction project, 14 contained human bones. The researchers found skeletons or isolated bones of at least one to five individuals in each of 13 pits. The final pit contained the bodies and limbs described in the new paper.

Joints of severed arms and skeletons in that pit were well-preserved, indicating that all had been placed there at or around the same time with a minimum amount of jostling disturbance. The pit also contained remains of a piece of jewelry made with a mussel’s valve, a stone arrowhead, a fragment of a pig’s jaw and two hare skeletons. The skeleton of a woman who had been put in the pit later lay on top of a sediment layer encasing those finds.

Neither that woman nor human remains in the other Bergheim pits showed signs of violent death or limb loss.

Author: Bruce Bower | Source: Science News [December 12, 2015]

A mass burial of bodies, known to be victims of the Black Death, has been discovered at the site of a 14th-century monastery hospital at Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire.

Archaeologists from the University of Sheffield revealed 48 skeletons, many of which were children, at the extremely rare Black Death burial site.

The Black Death was one of the worst pandemics in human history. It devastated European populations from 1346-1353 and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people.

The presence of such a large burial site, containing both male and female adults, as well as 27 children, suggests the local community was overwhelmed by the Black Death and was left unable to cope with the number of people who died.

Dr Hugh Willmott from the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology, who has been working on the excavation site since 2011, directed the excavations and explained why the find is of national importance.

"Despite the fact it is now estimated that up to half the population of England perished during the Black Death, multiple graves associated with the event are extremely rare in this country, and it seems local communities continued to dispose of their loved ones in as ordinary a way as possible," he said.

"The only two previously identified 14th-century sites where Yersinia pestis (the bacterium responsible for the plague) has been identified are historically documented cemeteries in London, where the civic authorities were forced to open new emergency burial grounds to cope with the very large numbers of the urban dead.

"The finding of a previously unknown and completely unexpected mass burial dating to this period in a quiet corner of rural Lincolnshire is thus far unique, and sheds light into the real difficulties faced by a small community ill prepared to face such a devastating threat."

Dr Willmott added: "While skeletons are interesting, they just represent the end of somebody's life and actually what we are interested in as archaeologists is the life they led before they died.

"One of the ways we can connect with that is through the everyday objects they left behind.

"One artefact that we found at Thornton Abbey was a little pendant. It is a Tau Cross and was found in the excavated hospital building. This pendant was used by some people as a supposed cure against a condition called St Antony's fire, which in modern day science is probably a variety of skin conditions.

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R004 Crouched burial. by Courtenay-Elle on Sketchfab
"Before we began the dig the site was just an ordinary green field grazed by sheep for hundreds of years, but like many fields across England, as soon as you take away the turf, layers of history can be revealed by archaeology."

Teeth samples from the skeletons found at the Thornton Abbey site were sent to McMaster University in Canada where ancient DNA was successfully extracted from the tooth pulp. Tests on the DNA revealed the presence of Yersinia pestis, which is documented to have reached Lincolnshire in the spring of 1349.

Dr Diana Mahoney Swales, from the University of Sheffield's Department for Lifelong Learning, who is leading the study of the bodies, said: "Once the skeletons return to the lab we start properly learning who these people really are.

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Tau Cross by Courtenay-Elle on Sketchfab
"We do this by identifying whether they are male or female, children or adults. And then we start to investigate the diseases that they may have lived through, such as metabolic diseases like rickets and scurvy which are degenerative diseases for the skeleton. However for diseases such as plague, which are lethal, we have to use ancient DNA analysis to investigate that further."

Source: University of Sheffield [November 30, 2016]

A team of archaeologists at the University of York have revealed new insights into cuisine choices and eating habits at Durrington Walls -- a Late Neolithic monument and settlement site thought to be the residence for the builders of nearby Stonehenge during the 25th century BC.

Together with researchers at the University of Sheffield, detailed analysis of pottery and animal bones has uncovered evidence of organised feasts featuring barbeque-style roasting, and an unexpected pattern in how foods were distributed and shared across the site.

Chemically analysing food residues remaining on several hundred fragments of pottery, the York team found differences in the way pots were used. Pots deposited in residential areas were found to be used for cooking animal products including pork, beef and dairy, whereas pottery from the ceremonial spaces was used predominantly for dairy.

Such spatial patterning could mean that milk, yoghurts and cheeses were perceived as fairly exclusive foods only consumed by a select few, or that milk products -- today often regarded as a symbol of purity -- were used in public ceremonies.

Unusually, there was very little evidence of plant food preparation at any part of the site. The main evidence points to mass animal consumption, particularly of pigs. Further analysis of animal bones, conducted at the University of Sheffield, found that many pigs were killed before reaching their maximum weight. This is strong evidence of planned autumn and winter slaughtering and feasting-like consumption.

The main methods of cooking meat are thought to be boiling and roasting in pots probably around indoor hearths, and larger barbeque-style roasting outdoors -- the latter evidenced by distinctive burn patterns on animal bones.

Bones from all parts of the animal skeleton were found, indicating that livestock was walked to the site rather than introduced as joints of meat. Isotopic analysis indicates that cattle originated from many different locations, some far away from the site. This is significant as it would require orchestration of a large number of volunteers likely drawn from far and wide. The observed patterns of feasting do not fit with a slave-based society where labour was forced and coerced, as some have suggested.

Dr Oliver Craig, Reader in Archaeological Science at the University of York and lead author on the paper, said: "Evidence of food-sharing and activity-zoning at Durrington Walls shows a greater degree of culinary organisation than was expected for this period of British prehistory. The inhabitants and many visitors to this site possessed a shared understanding of how foods should be prepared, consumed and disposed. This, together with evidence of feasting, suggests Durrington Walls was a well-organised working community."

Professor Mike Parker Pearson, Professor at University College London and Director of the Feeding Stonehenge project who also led the excavations at Durrington Walls, said: "This new research has given us a fantastic insight into the organisation of large-scale feasting among the people who built Stonehenge. Animals were brought from all over Britain to be barbecued and cooked in open-air mass gatherings and also to be eaten in more privately organized meals within the many houses at Durrington Walls.

"The special placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone. The sharing of food had religious as well as social connotations for promoting unity among Britain's scattered farming communities in prehistory. "

Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito, who analysed the pottery samples and recently joined Newcastle University, added: "The combination of pottery analysis with the study of animal bones is really effective, and shows how these different types of evidence can be brought together to provide a detailed picture of food and cuisine in the past."

The study has been published in the Antiquity Journal.

Source: University of York [October 12, 2015]

It is an archaeological enigma which last week a team of experts professed to have resolved: if and how the ‘bluestones’ at Stonehenge were excavated and transported from Pembrokeshire by our prehistoric ancestors.

The team of archaeologists and geologists – led academics from University College, London, said they definitively confirmed two sites in the Preseli Hills – Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin - had been quarried for two types of stone.

It was suggested the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire.

But the assertions on how the stones were removed and transported, apparently leaving evidence so-called “engineering features,” have been branded “all wrong” by another team of earth scientists, in a conflicting report published today.

In a peer-reviewed paper published in the Archaeology in Wales journal, Dr Brian John, Dr Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes say there are “no traces of human intervention in any of the features that have made the archaeologists so excited”.

The group does not accept the idea of a Neolithic quarry in the Preseli Hills and says the supposed signs of ‘quarrying’ by humans at Craig Rhos-y-Felin were entirely natural.

They also believe that the archaeologists behind the report may have inadvertently created certain features during five years of “highly selective sediment removal”.

“This site has been described by lead archaeologist Prof Mike Parker Pearson as ‘the Pompeii of prehistoric stone quarries’ and has caused great excitement in archaeological circles,” says the report.

“The selection of this rocky crag near the village of Brynberian for excavation in 2011-2015 was triggered by the discovery by geologists Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer that some of the stone fragments in the soil at Stonehenge were quite precisely matched to an unusual type of foliated rhyolite found in the crag.

“This led the archaeologists to conclude that there must have been a Neolithic quarry here, worked for the specific purpose of cutting out monoliths for the bluestone settings at Stonehenge.”

But Dr John is increasingly convinced that the rhyolite debris at Stonehenge comes from glacial erratics which were eroded from the Rhosyfelin rocky crag almost half a million years ago by the overriding Irish Sea Glacier and then transported eastwards by ice towards Salisbury Plain.

In his paper written with Dr Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes, he says: “It is suggested, on the basis of careful examinations of this site, that certain of the “man made features” described have been created by the archaeologists themselves through a process of selective sediment and clast removal.

“An expectation or conviction that ‘engineering features’ would be found has perhaps led to the unconscious fashioning of archaeological artifices.

“While there appears to be no landform, rock mechanics or sedimentary evidence that this was a Neolithic quarry site devoted to the extraction of bluestone orthostats destined for use at Stonehenge, or for any other purpose, we would accept the possibility that there may have been temporary Mesolithic, Neolithic or later camp sites here over a very long period of time, as in many other sheltered and wooded locations in north Pembrokeshire.”

Commenting on the research paper published last week, Dr Brian John added: “The new geological work at Rhosyfelin and Stonehenge is an interesting piece of ‘rock provenencing’ – but it tells us nothing at all about how monoliths or smaller rock fragments from West Wales found their way to Stonehenge.

“We are sure that the archaeologists have convinced themselves that the glacial transport of erratics was impossible. We are not sure where they got that idea from.

“On the contrary, there is substantial evidence in favour of glacial transport and zero evidence in support of the human transport theory. We accept that there might have been a camp site at Rhosyfelin, used intermittently by hunters over several millennia. But there is no quarry.

“We think the archaeologists have been so keen on telling a good story here that they have ignored or misinterpreted the evidence in front of them.

“That’s very careless. They now need to undertake a complete reassessment of the material they have collected.”

Further excavations of the quarries are planned for 2016.

Author: Rachael Misstear | Source: Wales Online [December 14, 2015]

The Hundred Years War might not be quite over just yet with an apparent Franco-British row brewing over Joan of Arc's gold-plated ring.

Just as the historic gold-plated ring was safely back in French hands it’s emerged that British authorities want it back.

The saga of Joan of Arc’s ring took a new twist on Sunday just as it was officially unveiled on its return to France.

The ring thought to belong toFrance's most famous historical martyr, Joan of Arc, was unveiled on Sunday at the Puy de Fou historical theme park in the western Vendee region.

Some 5,000 spectators turned out to see the unveiling of the ring, that the park had bought at a London auction for €376, 833 ($425,000).

"It's a little bit of France that has returned. The ring has come back to France and will stay here," said Philippe de Villiers, the founder of Puy de Fou told the crowd.

The ring had thought to have been in Britain for over six centuries and de Villiers told spectators that there was “a new twist” in the story of the ring.

“The British government has sent our lawyer an unprecedented demand: the return of the ring to London,” de Villers told the shocked crowd.

“We are told that the National Arts Council considers this ring part of those objects with, and I quote ‘high national symbolic value’ and as such should have part of a special legislation.”

According to the demand, on purchasing the ring the Puy de Fou park should have obtained a special export license necessary under European regulations.

De Villiers said that they had checked the rules and claimed they only apply if the object is taken out of the European Union.

He then mocked the British and the potential of a Brexit fro the EU by telling the crowd: “It is not at all our intention to have a Puy de Fou exit.

He then sent a defiant message to the British government.

“Ladies and gentlemen from Britain, if you want to see the ring, then come to the Puy de Fou. For the rest it’s too late,” he said.

Joan of Arc, who fought against the English occupation of France during the Hundred Years' War, was burned alive at the stake but became a symbol of French resistance and was later made a saint by the Catholic Church.

The official unveiling saw the ring carried on a cushion in a wooden ark, with its own honour guard and a military procession.

The gold-plated silver ring was dated to the 15th century by an Oxford laboratory, but the trove of historical documents that came with it have yet to prove it belonged to the famous French martyr.

"They are only at the start of the exploration. It's a lot of work but a beautiful adventure," said expert Vanessa Soupault, who saw the ring recently.

The bulky piece of jewellery features three engraved crosses and the inscription "JHS-MAR", signifying "Jesus-Maria".

That fits a description recorded at Joan of Arc's trial in 1431, where she told the court the ring had been given by her parents.

Puy du Fou says the ring was probably enlarged and modified at some point in the last 200 years.

However the difficulty of tracing the ring's path through the centuries has left many historians sceptical.

Part of the problem is the number of copies in circulation. There was even a tombola in the early 20th century in which prizes included versions of the ring.

"Around Joan of Arc, we already have several cases of false objects," said Olivier Bouzy, head of the Joan of Arc archives in the north-central French town of Orleans

Source: The Local [April 15, 2016]

New archaeological research, carried out by Museum of London Archaeology (Mola), of a previously unknown early Roman fort built in AD63 as a direct response to the sacking of London by the native tribal Queen of the Iceni, Boudicca. The revolt razed the early Roman town to the ground in AD60/61 but until now little was understood about the Roman’s response to this devastating uprising.

The excavations at Plantation Place for British Land on Fenchurch Street in the City of London exposed a section of a rectangular fort that covered 3.7acres. The timber and earthwork fort had 3metre high banks reinforced with interlacing timbers and faced with turves and a timber wall. Running atop the bank was a ‘fighting platform’ fronted by a colossal palisade, with towers positioned at the corners of the gateways. This formidable structure was enclosed by double ditches, 1.9 and 3m deep, forming an impressive obstacle for would be attackers.

The Roman army were experts in construction; proficiently sourcing local materials from nearby woods and even using debris from buildings burnt in the revolt. It is estimated that a fort of this size would have housed a cohort of approximately 500 men but could have been built by hand in a matter of weeks, perhaps with the help of captive Britons. Archaeologists uncovered a pick axe and a hammer, tools that would have been available to the army for building projects.

Within the fort, evidence for roads was uncovered alongside storage and administrative facilities, a granary, cookhouse and even a latrine. The fort was kept clean but a few fragments of armour, including part of a helmet and mounts from horse harnesses were discovered.

Only in active use for fewer than 10 years and with evidence pointing towards the use of tents rather than permanent structures for barracks, the fort was evidently erected as an emergency measure to secure the important trading post of London and to aid with the reconstruction and reestablishment of London at this turbulent time.

A number of major infrastructure projects contemporary with the fort point to the army playing a crucial role in this rebuilding, providing labour and engineering expertise for roads, a new quay and a water lifting machine, all vital for trading and civilian life to thrive once again.

Positioned over the main road into London, commanding the route into the town from London Bridge and overlooking the river, the fort would have dominated the town at this time, perhaps reflecting the absence of civilian life and the utter destruction wrought by the native Britons on Roman London.

In AD 120 the much larger Cripplegate fort was constructed and in the 3rd century a substantial wall erected around the town. Archaeologists are yet to find evidence of an earlier fort or military structures for the intervening periods but their search continues.

The research has been published by Mola in >An early Roman fort and urban development on Londinium’s eastern hill by Lesley Dunwoodie, Chiz Harward and Ken Pitt, available priced £30 via Mola's publications pages.

Source: Museum of London Archaeology [May 13, 2016]

They came from every parish of London, and from all walks of life, and ended up in a burial ground called Bedlam. Now scientists hope their centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived - and about the bubonic plague that often killed them.

Archaeologists announced Monday that they have begun excavating the bones of some 3,000 people interred in the 16th and 17th centuries, who now lie in the path of the Crossrail transit line. They will be pored over by scientists before being reburied elsewhere.

One recent workday, just meters (yards) from teeming Liverpool Street railway station, researchers in orange overalls scraped, sifted and gently removed skeletons embedded in the dark earth. In one corner of the site, the skeleton of an adult lay beside the fragile remains of a baby, the wooden outline of its coffin still visible. Most were less intact, a jumble of bones and skulls.

"Part of the skill of it is actually working out which bones go with which," said Alison Telfer, a project officer with Museum of London Archaeology, which is overseeing the dig.

Due to open in 2018, the 118-kilometer (73-mile) trans-London Crossrail line is Britain's biggest construction project, and its largest archaeological dig for decades. The central 21-kilometer (13-mile) section runs underground, which has meant tunneling beneath some of the oldest and most densely populated parts of the city.

For Londoners, that has brought years of noise and disruption, but for archaeologists it's like Christmas. Almost every shovelful of earth has uncovered a piece of history, or prehistory: bison and mammoth bones; Roman horseshoes; medieval ice skates; the remains of a moated Tudor manor house.

Chief archaeologist Jay Carver says the Bedlam dig could be the most revealing yet.

"It's going to be archaeologically the most important sample we have of the population of London from the 16th and 17th centuries," Carver said.

Bedlam cemetery opened in 1569 to take the overspill as the city's churchyard burial grounds filled up. It is the final resting place of prosperous citizens and paupers, religious dissenters including the 17th-century revolutionary Robert Lockyer and patients from Bedlam Hospital, the world's first asylum for the mentally ill. The hospital's name, a corruption of Bethlehem, became a synonym for chaos.

Tests on the bones by osteologists may reveal where these Londoners came from, what they ate and what ailed them - which in many cases was the plague. There were four outbreaks of the deadly disease over the two centuries the cemetery was in use, including the "Great Plague" that killed 100,000 people in 1665.

Carver says researchers will analyze DNA taken from pulp in the skeletons' teeth to help fill in the "evolutionary tree of the plague bacteria."

The technique was used to discover the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in 14th-century skeletons excavated at another Crossrail site, identifying them as victims of the Black Death that wiped out half the city's population in 1348.

Scientists should be able to compare the bacterium found in Bedlam's plague victims with the 14th-century samples, helping to understand whether the disease - which still infects several thousand people a year - has evolved over the centuries.

Sixty archaeologists working in shifts - 16 hours a day, six days a week - will spend about a month removing the remains. After scientific study, they will be reburied on Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary - the latest in a long line of Londoners to move east out of the congested city.

The old burial ground will be the site of a new train station, whose users will probably give little thought to the history beneath their feet.

But Telfer says she never forgets that these fragile bones were once living, breathing individuals.

"When you are doing something like this, you do feel a connection with them," she said. "I think you have a responsibility to treat them with great respect. It's quite a special process."

Bedlam burial register: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/sustainability/archaeology/bedlam-burial-ground-register

Author: Jill Lawess | Source: The Associated Press [March 09, 2015]

The world’s leading auction house has withdrawn from sale more than £1.2 million of ancient artefacts identified by an expert at a Scottish university as having links to organised criminal networks in Europe, The Scotsman can reveal.

Eight rare antiquities have been pulled from auction by Christie’s over the past six months after a University of Glasgow academic uncovered images of them in archives seized from Italian art dealers convicted of trafficking offences.

The latest tranche of treasures were due to be sold at auction in London tomorrow, but after Dr Christos Tsirogiannis notified Interpol and Italian authorities, they were removed. Last night, the auction house vowed to work with Scotland Yard to scrutinise the items’ provenance.

Dr Tsirogiannis, a research assistant at the university’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, discovered the four lots catalogued in the confiscated archives of Giancomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina, and warned Christie’s was failing to carry out “due diligence”.

Medici was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2004 by a Rome court after he was found guilty of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities. Becchina, a Sicilian antiquities dealer, was convicted in Rome four years ago of trafficking in plundered artefacts.

Dr Tsirogiannis, a forensic archaeologist, has access to their photos and documents via Greek police and prosecutors.

The items accepted for tomorrow’s antiquities sale date back to 540BC. They include an Attic black-figured amphora and an Etruscan terracotta antefix. Cumulatively, they are worth close to £100,000.

It is the second time in six months Dr Tsirogiannis has highlighted the dubiety of items being sold through Christie’s. The value of the eight withdrawn lots exceeds £1.2 million.

Dr Tsirogiannis, a member of Trafficking Culture, a Glasgow-based research programme which compiles evidence of the contemporary global trade in looted cultural objects, said: “Christie’s continues to include in its sales antiquities depicted in confiscated archives of convicted art dealers. Sometimes they sell the lots but nearly every time they withdraw them.

“I don’t understand why they can’t do due diligence beforehand. Clearly, it’s not taking place. Christie’s say they don’t have access to these archives which is not true. Every auction house, dealer and museum should refer to Italian and Greek authorities, who would check for free before the sales.” Dr Donna Yates, of Trafficking Culture, added: “Do they contact antiquities trafficking experts before their auctions? No, never. Do they make public whatever provenance documents they have for a particular piece? No, never. I can only conclude that they don’t take this particularly seriously.”

A spokeswoman for Christie’s said: “We have withdrawn four lots from our upcoming antiquities sale as it was brought to our attention that there is a question mark over their provenance, namely, that they are similar to items recorded in the Medici and Becchina archives.

“We will now work with Scotland Yard’s art and antiques unit to discover whether or not there is a basis for concerns expressed over the provenance.”

She said Christie’s would never sell any item it has reason to believe was stolen and called on those with access to the Medici and Becchina archives to make them “freely available.”

Author: Martyn McLaughlin | Source: The Scotsman [April 13, 2015]