Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:26 pm
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Read more here: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/ ... 34660442/(Art World) A 1,000-year-old Medieval treasure trove, including four golden ear pendants, two strips of gold leaf, and 39 silver coins were found by a Dutch historian, according to the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities on Thursday.
Lorenzo Ruijter found the hoard using a metal detector in Hoogwoud, a small city in North Holland, in 2021. The metal detectorist had to keep it a secret for two years, while experts at the National Museum of Antiquities cleaned, researched, and dated the objects.
“It was very special discovering something this valuable, I can’t really describe it. I never expected to discover anything like this,” Ruijter told Reuters.
One of the coins dated back to 1250 CE, which researchers believe was around the time the treasure would have been buried. By that time, however, the jewelry would have already been at least two centuries old.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/persian-pri ... ire-68237(IFL Science) Legend has it that seven Persian princes fleeing persecution once escaped across the Arabian Sea before landing in East Africa and establishing a trading dynasty that dominated the Swahili coast for centuries. Known as the Kilwa Chronicle, this ancient oral tradition had until now been dismissed as fiction, yet a new genetic study suggests that the fable may be rooted in reality.
The Swahili coast stretches from Ethiopia to Tanzania and was once a major hub of medieval trade. From here, merchants established commercial networks that spanned East Africa and the Indian Ocean, although scholars have spent the past 100 years debating whether this prosperous civilization was established by local African populations or foreign traders from South Asia.
Colonial chroniclers tended to favor the latter explanation, although postcolonial historians have pointed out that the medieval architecture and language of the Swahili coast were of African origin, thus suggesting that the culture was founded by local populations.
To settle the debate, researchers analyzed the DNA of 80 medieval individuals recovered from elite burial sites across the Swahili coast and an inland town. Dating from the 13th to 19th centuries, the skeletons derived much of their male ancestry from Persian men, while female lineages were almost exclusively African.
Based on the rate of genetic admixture, the study authors say the first Persian men probably arrived in the area around 1000 CE, which coincides with the adoption of Islam on the Swahili coast. Such a finding lends new credence to the Kilwa Chronicle, indicating that the mighty trading empire may indeed have been founded by royal Persian escapees.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/medieva ... volcanos/(Courthouse News) — Bubonic plague. Famine. Civil and political unrest. Faithfully documented lunar eclipses between 1100 and 1300 A.D. Besides obvious medieval timelines, all share ties to something seemingly unrelated: volcanic eruptions.
A study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday from a team of international researchers led by the University of Geneva details the five years they spent pouring over European and Middle Eastern texts from the 12th and 13th centuries to identify some of the most prolific volcanic eruptions known to date — eruptions that occurred between 1100 and 1300 or the “High Medieval Period.”
The collective effect of volcanic eruptions during the High Medieval Period is thought to have led to the “Little Ice Age,” a climate interval between the early 14th and mid-19th centuries where mountain glaciers expanded in several locations and temperatures dropped, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.
To find what they were looking for, researchers had to dig through hundreds of annals and chronicles in search of references to a total lunar eclipse and descriptions of coloration, which left clues as to whether a volcanic eruption occurred at the time.
“I was listening to Pink Floyd’s 'Dark Side of the Moon' album when I realized that the darkest lunar eclipses all occurred within a year or so of major volcanic eruptions,” said lead author Sébastien Guillet in a statement. “Since we know the exact days of the eclipses, it opened the possibility of using the sightings to narrow down when the eruptions must have happened.”
Read more of the IFL Science article here: https://www.iflscience.com/frozen-mumm ... ost-68341(IFL Science) The permafrost of east Eurasian mountains is slowly melting away, helping to reveal the buried bodies of the much-feared Mongol Empire – as well as their unquenchable thirst for yak milk.
New research has studied the remains of a cemetery at the so-called Khorig site, located high in the Khovsgol mountains. Dating suggests that the cemetery was operating in the 13th century starting around the time of the Mongol Empire’s unification in 1206 CE.
This was the year when the infamous Genghis Khan was proclaimed the ruler of all Mongols. With the help of a fearless horseback army, he launched a series of bloody military campaigns across Asia, laying the foundations for the largest contiguous land empire in history that spanned from the Pacific coast of Asia to Eastern Europe. The world was never the same again.
In 2018 and 2019, the skeletons of 11 individuals were discovered at the elite burial site after they had partially been revealed by melting permafrost. The bodies were still in surprisingly good condition, despite being over 800 years old, thanks to the sub-zero temperatures preserving the remains.
Buried alongside lavish grave goods and dressed in fine materials, it appears the people interred here held a high social status.
Read more of the IFL Science article here: https://www.iflscience.com/unprecedent ... er-68420(IFL Science) A strange circular structure in the cold, harsh highlands of Bolivia may once have hosted rituals designed to control the region’s hostile climate, researchers have suggested. Reporting the discovery of the unusual pre-Hispanic ceremonial center, the study authors say the “surprising” construction is unlike any other ever found in the Andes.
The ruin was located during an archaeological survey in Carangas, which the researchers describe as “a region of the central-southern Andean Altiplano characterised by its extremely arid and cold climate.” After identifying 135 “noteworthy” religious sites in the area, the authors say that this unwelcoming wasteland was once “a dense ritual landscape.”
While the presence of so many ceremonial structures in this remote stretch of highland is itself somewhat unexpected, the researchers go on to explain that “of these sites, one ceremonial centre stands out for its unprecedented characteristics for the Andes.” Named Waskiri, the structure “surprises both in its large dimensions (140 meters [459 feet] in diameter) and its design and regularity,” they say.
Located near the Chilean border, Waskiri is described as “an impressive circular construction” that features a perimeter ring comprised of 39 adjoining enclosures. This outer structure surrounds a central plaza that was found to contain pottery from the Late Intermediate and Late Periods.
Based on these artifacts, the researchers believe the structure was in use some time between 1250 and 1600 CE.
Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.
The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn.
“A hoard like this is very rare,” Lars Christian Norbach, the director of the North Jutland Museum, where the artefacts will go on display, told Agence France-Presse.
The silver coins were found about 5 miles (8km) from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro. From their inscriptions, they are believed to date back to the 980s.
The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as pieces of jewellery originating from Scotland or Ireland, according to archaeologists. Norbach said the finds were from the same period as the fort, built by King Harald Bluetooth, and would offer a greater insight into the history of the Vikings.