The luxurious yacht was built for Saddam Hussein in a style the Wall Street Journal called “Liberace Babylon.” It features staterooms, gilt furniture, and a secret escape hatch. Photograph by Angelos Tzortzinis, AFP/Getty

BASRA, Iraq After three decades of being passed around by Middle Eastern monarchs, Saddam Hussein’s yacht is now in the hands of Iraqi marine researchers.

Built for the then-president’s personal use in 1980, the 270-foot-long (82 meter) vessel boasts four decks, a bevy of gilt and mahogany furniture, and a secret bedroom with an escape hatch, dwarfing the two smaller boats that make up the rest of Iraq’s research fleet.

“It cost $25 million when it was commissioned,” Captain Hussein Ghazi Khalifa said on a recent tour of the yacht that went from the cavernous engine room to the helicopter pad. “Now it would cost four times that.”

The ship’s luxurious dining, sleeping, and sitting areas have been converted to accommodate scientists, but much of the décor is still intact. Its period smoked glass, clunky Panasonic televisions, and rococo china cabinet, all built in a style one commentator called “Liberace Babylon,” remain as the recently-rechristened Basrah Breeze explores the Persian Gulf’s changing biology and chemistry for the University of Basrah’s Marine Science Center.

It must be the world’s most extravagantly appointed research vessel. And it took an odd combination of geopolitics, economics, and happenstance to land the Basrah Breeze in its namesake port.

A salon is among the many luxurious rooms featured on the yacht. While some modifications have been made to accomodate researchers, much of the boat’s décor remains intact. Photograph by Mahan-Kalpa Khalsa

A Middle Eastern White Elephant

Even though he had it custom made for his own use, with a dozen bedrooms for guests, marble-tiled bathrooms, and a presidential suite that includes an office and a hair salon, Saddam Hussein never set foot on the yacht.

Originally called Qadissiyat Saddam (the name is a reference to a 7th century battle in which Arabs triumphed over Persia), the boat was built in Denmark at a time when Iraq—then an ally of the U.S.—was locked in a bloody fight with Iran. The boat couldn’t be safely delivered, and it ended up moored in Oman for years as the war dragged on.

In the mid-1980s, Hussein gave the boat as a gift to King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, who Khalifa says gave it the alluring name al-Yamamah, which he translated as Woman with Big Eyes. But the boat also has a big appetite. To power its two 3,000 horsepower engines and four generators on long journeys, the ship’s fuel tanks were built to hold 200 tons of diesel. At current prices, it would cost more than $100,000 to fill it up.

Even to an oil-rich ruler like Fahid, it must’ve seemed like a white elephant. He passed the ship to Jordan’s King Hussein. When the king died in 1999, his successor, Abdullah II, sent the ship to the south of France under ownership of a company based in the Cayman Islands but reportedly controlled by Jordan.

Then came the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which resulted in Hussein’s capture. He was executed three years later. In 2007, when the Cayman Islands company tried to sell the ship, the Iraqi government claimed ownership. Khalifa estimates the Iraqi government spent $1 million to secure clear title to the yacht, which a French court granted in 2008 after documents were found in the ship confirming it was still legally an Iraqi vessel.

A Ruler’s Folly Proves Research Boon

Attempts to sell the vessel foundered, and Iraqi officials had no choice but to bring it home. In 2010, the ship arrived in Basra with its current name and much fanfare.

“The return of the yacht means that the people’s will is stronger than the tyrant’s,” said then-Minister of Transportation Amer Abdul Jabbar at the celebration. “Saddam Hussein built this yacht to be used to his own personal purposes, but here it is returned to Iraqi people.”

But the boat didn’t get much use at first. Plans to turn it into a museum of Hussein’s excess—or a hotel that made use of the large staterooms, each with a different color scheme—were floated, but nothing came of them. The ship slowly rusted in the brackish waters of the Shatt-al-Arab on the Basra waterfront until 2014, when, according to Khalifa, well-connected professors from the University of Basra convinced the government to turn it over to them. At the time, Iraq’s modest research fleet had already made some important discoveries, such as the recent find that a coral reef is growing off the Iraqi coast. That’s a sign of increasingly clear and saline water at the head of the Persian Gulf, rather than the fresh and muddy outflow of the past, and it spells ill for the nation’s water supply and ecosystems.

In early 2015, the newest member of the Iraqi research fleet went on its inaugural research mission, carrying 75 Iranian, Kuwaiti, and Iraqi researchers into the Persian Gulf to study water quality and sea life. Two additional voyages have been made since. Although the decks show signs of weathering and the engine control room still uses early 1980s technology, the vessel appears surprisingly shipshape.

The bedroom built for Saddam Hussein is in the bow of the ship. The vessel has many additional bedrooms for guests, but they’re now being used by marine researchers. Photograph by Mahan-Kalpa Khalsa

Ali Douabul, a marine chemist at the Marine Research Center, said he hopes to use the Basrah Breeze for further studies of the coral reef and to survey the northwestern Persian Gulf. But the pockets of an Iraqi university can’t match those of an Arab monarch, even though researchers only use a small portion of the massive fuel tank for each mission.

“We want to sail in 2016, but the financial crisis prevents us,” Khalifa said. The captain added that he hope that international cooperation with wealthier countries along the Persian Gulf could help by splitting the fuel bill.

Sitting at the helm, looking across the sprawling city below, he sighed and looked wistful. “I love the sea,” he said. “It’s so much better on the open water. You are free from all the problems of the Earth.”

He just needs someone to help fill the tank.

The post Saddam Hussein’s Yacht Is Sailing Again With a New Mission appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

A bare-chested Viking offers a slave girl to a Persian merchant in an artist’s rendering of a scene from Bulgar, a trading town on the Volga River. Illustration by Tom Lovell, National Geographic Creative

New clues suggest slaves were vital to the Viking way of life—and argue against attempts to soften the raiders’ brutish reputation.

The ancient reputation of Vikings as bloodthirsty raiders on cold northern seas has undergone a radical change in recent decades. A kinder, gentler, and more fashionable Viking emerged.

But our view of the Norse may be about to alter course again as scholars turn their gaze to a segment of Viking society that has long remained in the shadows.

Archaeologists are using recent finds and analyses of previous discoveries—from iron collars in Ireland to possible plantation houses in Sweden—to illuminate the role of slavery in creating and maintaining the Viking way of life.

Small houses surround a great hall at a Viking site in Sweden called Sanda. Some archaeologists believe this may have been a Viking plantation with slaves as the labor force.

“This was a slave economy,” said Neil Price, an archaeologist at Sweden’s Uppsala University who spoke at a recent meeting that brought together archaeologists who study slavery and colonization. “Slavery has received hardly any attention in the past 30 years, but now we have opportunities using archaeological tools to change this.”

Scandinavian slavery still echoes in the English language today. The expression “to be held in thrall,” meaning to be under someone’s power, traces back to the Old Norse term for a slave: thrall.

Slavery in the region long predates the Vikings. There is evidence of vast economic disparity as early as the first century A.D., with some people living with animals in barns while others live nearby in large, prosperous homes. In 2009, archaeologist Frands Herschend at Uppsala detailed a burnt structure from this early era in which people and animals were immolated. The human bodies were left in the ruins rather than retrieved for burial.

Ancient chronicles long mentioned that people, as well as precious objects, were a target of the Viking raids that began in 793 A.D. at the Scottish monastery of Lindisfarne. The Annals of Ulster record “a great booty of women” taken in a raid near Dublin in 821 A.D., while the same account contends that 3,000 people were captured in a single attack a century later.

Ibn Hawqal, an Arab geographer, described a Viking slave trade in 977 A.D. that extended across the Mediterranean from Spain to Egypt. Others recorded that slaves from northern Europe were funneled from Scandinavia through Russia to Byzantium and Baghdad.

Shortage of Women and Workers

Price suspects that “slavery was a very significant motivator in raiding.” One key factor may have been a dire need for women.

Some scholars believe that the Vikings were a polygamous society that made it hard for non-elites to find brides. That may have driven the raids and ambitious exploration voyages for which Vikings are best known. Some genetic studies, for example, suggest that a majority of Icelandic women are related to Scottish and Irish ancestors who likely were raid booty.

As Viking fleets expanded, so did the need for wool to produce the sails necessary to power the ships. This also may have driven the need for slaves. “There was a significant shift in agriculture,” said Price. The pressing need for wool production likely led to a plantation-like economy, a topic now being studied by researchers.

Slavery was a very significant motivator in raiding.

Neil Price | Archaeologist

For example, at a Swedish site called Sanda, researchers in the 1990s found a great hall surrounded by small houses. Some Swedish archaeologists now believe this could have been a Viking plantation with slaves as the labor force.

“What you likely have is a slave-driven production of textiles,” said Price. “We can’t really know who is making the cloth, but the implications are clear.”

William Fitzhugh, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution, added that “female slaves were concubines, cooks, and domestic workers.” Male thralls likely were involved in cutting trees, building ships, and rowing those vessels for their Viking masters.

Human Sacrifices

Other studies suggest that Viking slaves were sometimes sacrificed when their masters died, and they ate more poorly during their lives.

Elise Naumann, an archaeologist at the University of Oslo, recently discovered that decapitated bodies found in several Viking tombs likely were not related to the other remains. This lack of kinship, combined with signs of mistreatment, make it likely that they were slaves sacrificed at the death of their masters, a practice mentioned in Viking sagas and Arab chronicles.

The bones also revealed a diet based heavily on fish, while their masters dined more heartily on meat and dairy products.

The harsh treatment accorded slaves is amply recorded both in the archaeological and historical record.

The harsh treatment accorded slaves is amply recorded both in the archaeological and historical record. On the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, a wealthy male Viking’s tomb includes the remains of a young female killed by a ferocious blow to the top of her head and mixed in with the ashes of cremated animals. Other such examples can be found across northern Europe.

Life for thralls was clearly harsh. A 14th-century poem—the original likely dates from the end of the Viking era—gives an idea of how Vikings saw their slaves. Among their names were Bastard, Sluggard, Stumpy, Stinker, and Lout.

Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, an Arab lawyer and diplomat from Baghdad who encountered the men of Scandinavia in his travels, wrote that Vikings treated their female chattel as sex slaves. If a slave died, he added, “they leave him there as food for the dogs and the birds.”

But one recent discovery challenges ideas about the status of slaves. In recent years, researchers have identified nearly 80 Viking skeletons that feature deep grooves across their upper front teeth. Some speculate that these may have been a mark of a warrior class, since the skeletons were all male.

Anna Kjellstrom at Stockholm University, noted that the remains of two men in central Sweden that appear to be buried as slaves include the teeth grooves.

“This is not the same as saying that modified teeth is a feature only found in slaves,” Kjellstrom added. But it is forcing scholars to rethink the idea that it was solely for warriors, as well as the place of slaves in Viking society.

Nevertheless, as scholars focus on the Norse need for human chattel, the kinder and gentler aura surrounding Vikings today may begin to diminish.

The post Kinder, Gentler Vikings? Not According to Their Slaves appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

Ancient sites in contested areas are more vulnerable to looting and destruction than those in ISIS-controlled territory.

Videos of Islamic State militants shattering ancient statues and blowing up classical temples have shocked the world. But according to a new analysis of satellite images by U.S. archaeologists, these high-profile acts obscure the actual extent of damage to Syria’s rich cultural heritage.

The team examined images of 1,450 ancient sites across the shattered nation and found that one in four has been damaged or looted in the civil war that began in 2011.

More than half of those sites are in rebel-controlled areas, followed by those dominated by Kurdish forces. Damage at sites claimed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, accounts for a quarter of the destruction, with the remainder in areas loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“It is quite evident that overall incidents of looting are much higher in Kurdish and opposition-held areas than in either Syrian regime or ISIL areas,” said Jesse Casana, a Dartmouth University archaeologist who is leading the analysis.

This finding should not be surprising, given that looting tends to spike in places with no civil authority, Casana told a gathering of the American Schools for Oriental Research in Atlanta earlier this month. Contested areas, such as those around the ancient city of Aleppo, have suffered even more extensively than sites under ISIS control.

It is quite evident that overall incidents of looting are much higher in Kurdish and opposition-held areas than in either Syrian regime or ISIL areas.

Archaeologist Jesse Casana
Dartmouth University

Syria boasts more than 6,500 mapped ancient sites that range from Neolithic settlements to medieval mosques. When the team categorized damage as minor, moderate, or severe, sites in ISIS-controlled areas were more likely to have suffered severe damage than those in other parts of Syria. “This could be read as evidence of more organized, potentially state-sanctioned looting in those areas,” Casana added.

The 2,000-year-old Baal temple in Palmyra was destroyed in September after ISIS invaded this desert region. Above, the temple can be seen in the center of the massive platform before the destruction; below shows the site after. PHOTOGRAPH BY DIGITALGLOBE, GETTY IMAGES

Yet chaos has proved even more destructive than ISIS’ publicity campaign to rid its area of ancient monuments. A lack of civil control encourages groups and individuals to dig up artifacts to sell on the international art market. And military action in more contested areas also poses a threat to cultural heritage.
For example, the human-made mounds that dot the Syrian landscape, remnants of ancient settlements, can serve as strategic defenses. Casana’s team tracked bulldozers constructing troop garrisons at sites like Tell Jifar, which is under Syrian government control. That site also has been severely looted, either with the approval or involvement of government troops there.

“The extreme actions by ISIL have led to understandable outrage across the globe,” said Casana. “But our focus on ISIL has also led to some misunderstandings about the scope of the antiquities crisis in the region, and about who is responsible for it, and therefore how best to address it.”

Elise Laugier, an archaeologist at the University of Arkansas also working on the assessment, which is still ongoing, added that there has been as much looting in Syria in the past five years as in all the decades prior to the conflict.

Looting by Decree
Ironically, the lower percentage of looting in areas controlled by ISIS appears to be the result of the self-serving order the terrorist group has imposed on northern and eastern Syria. “They have a framework to regulate looting and punish those who don’t get looting permits,” said Casana.

In May, U.S. Special Forces raided a village in eastern Syria in the search for a senior ISIS official named Abu Sayyaf. He was killed in the ensuing shootout, and the military team captured artifacts—many of them fake—as well as a cache of documents that revealed ISIS complicity in the antiquities trade.

Chaos has proved even more destructive than ISIS’ publicity campaign to rid its area of ancient monuments.

According to the documents released by the U.S. State Department, Sayyaf was in charge of the antiquities division of ISIS’ Diwan of Natural Resources, which also oversees oil. Sayyaf was the official who provided permits for looters within Syria.

ISIS officials confirmed this in September in a memo from its General Committee. “It is prohibited for any brother from the Islamic State to excavate antiquities or give the permit to anyone from the public without receiving a stamped permit.”

Aleppo once was home to one of the finest collections of medieval architecture in the Middle East. After a November 7 attack by the Syrian army, residents of the city’s Salahiye neighborhood dig through the rubble. PHOTOGRAPH BY IBRAHIM EBU LEYS, ANADOLU AGENCY, GETTY IMAGES

Permit holders are expected to give 20 percent of their profits to ISIS—a traditional Islamic “war booty” fee—or face punishment. According to the captured memos, in the four months leading up to April, ISIS received $265,000 in taxes on total sales of $1.25 million.
“That is just one snapshot” of a limited period of time, said Andrew Keller, a U.S. State Department official who monitors ISIS revenue streams. In a September speech, he added that the total figure for that period is likely much higher, and that ISIS “does not just passively tax the sale of antiquities by others. It actively controls the trade to ensure maximum profits.”

Permit holders are expected to give 20 percent of their profits to ISIS—a traditional Islamic “war booty” fee—or face punishment.
He estimates that the organization has made several million dollars from antiquities sales since mid-2014, but the precise amount is unknown.

The U.S. government is now trying to shut down these looting networks in part by offering up to $5 million for information leading to the significant disruption of the antiquities flowing out of Syria, said Andrew Cohen, an official at the State Department who spoke at the Atlanta meeting.

Low Priority
Given that ISIS beheaded a Syrian archaeologist at the classical site of Palmyra earlier this year, researchers dare not stray into its territory. This limitation makes satellite images vital for tracking the crisis.

While Casana’s team is examining photos, some more than a year old, other archaeologists and cultural heritage experts at the conference complained that they are stymied in attempts to monitor the situation in a more timely way.

“We are crying out for images,” said Scott Branting, director of mapping and data integration for the American Schools of Oriental Research’s Cultural Heritage Initiatives.

He said that the problem is that the U.S. Department of Defense puts cultural heritage low on its priority list. “There is a pecking order, and military priorities can block us.”
He added that satellite photos that his group does obtain can often be six to nine months old. Even for targets important to the military, cultural heritage analysts often remain in the dark about the current situation. Aleppo, for example, is home to a medieval souk and ancient citadel that have been at the heart of fighting, but Branting’s group has been unable to obtain any recent images. “This is a major bottleneck,” he adds.

To overcome this obstacle, Branting proposes “a suite of satellites” that would focus solely on cultural heritage imaging. The spacecraft could be based on the CubeSat series. These are small and can be built with off-the-shelf components, and are popular with academic researchers looking for low-cost access to space.

Branting acknowledges that the time and funding required to build and launch a satellite series would take years and tens of millions of dollars, but he argues it could offer a long-term solution for researchers who want to monitor cultural heritage sites under threat on a regular basis.

The post War, More Than ISIS, Is Destroying Syria’s Ancient Sites appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

The text message from the trench supervisor to archaeologists Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker was succinct: “Better come. Hit bronze.”

The excavators exploring a small stone shaft on a rocky promontory in southern Greece had found an unusual tomb of an ancient warrior. The burial may hold important clues to the origin of Greek civilization some 3,500 years ago.

Along with the well-preserved skeleton of a man in his early thirties, the grave contains more than 1,400 objects arrayed on and around the body, including gold rings, silver cups, and an elaborate bronze sword with an ivory hilt.

More surprising were 50 stone seals intricately carved with goddesses, lions, and bulls, as well as a half-dozen delicate ivory combs, a bronze mirror, and some 1,000 carnelian, amethyst, and jasper beads once strung together as necklaces. Between the man’s legs lay an ivory plaque carved with a griffin.

“Not since Schliemann have complete burials of this type been found in Greece,” says John Bennet, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in Britain and director of the British School at Athens, who is not involved with the dig. In the late 19th century, archaeological pioneer Heinrich Schliemann excavated Troy and Mycenae, the major Greek center from about 1600 B.C. to 1100 B.C.

Light on a Dark Time

The grave is located at the southwest end of the Peloponnese peninsula at Pylos, a place mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey as the site of King Nestor’s palace with its “lofty halls.” Excavations before and after World War II revealed remnants of a large Mycenaean palace dating to about 1300 B.C., as well as hundreds of clay tablets written in the Linear B script developed on Crete, an island about 100 miles offshore. Those texts led to the translation of Linear B, and confirmed the identity of Pylos.

Not since Schliemann have complete burials of this type been found in Greece.

John Bennet
archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in Britain
and director of the British School at Athens

But little is known about the earlier period around 1500 B.C., when Mycenaean society was taking shape. Archaeologists have long debated the influence of Minoan civilization, which began to flourish in Crete around 2500 B.C., on the rise of Mycenaean society a thousand years later. Linear B tablets, bull horn symbols, and goddess figurines found at Mycenaean sites like Pylos attest to the impact of Minoan culture. Based on archaeological evidence of destruction, many scholars believe that the Mycenaeans invaded and conquered Crete around 1450 B.C.

In May, Davis and Stocker, a husband-and-wife team from the University of Cincinnati, assembled 35 experts from 10 nations to begin a five-year project aimed at uncovering Pylos’ beginnings. They hit pay dirt on the first day, when workers clearing a field spotted a rectangle of stones that proved to be the top of a four-foot by eight-foot shaft. Three feet down, the excavators spotted the first bronze artifacts. Based on their style, Davis and Stocker are confident that the remains date to about 1500 B.C.

Unexpected Objects Pose a Puzzle

“To find an unrobbed and rich Mycenaean tomb is very rare,” says Cynthia Shelmerdine, a classics professor at the University of Texas at Austin who visited the site during the summer’s excavations. “This one shows us some things we would not have anticipated.”

What’s peculiar about the tomb is that it contains only a single person and includes a remarkable wealth of mostly foreign objects, as well as artifacts typically associated with women.

To find an unrobbed and rich Mycenaean tomb is very rare.

Cynthia Shelmerdine
classics professor at the University of Texas at Austin

Resting places for the Mycenaean elite usually include many individuals. Just 100 yards from the new find, archaeologists excavated such a group tomb in the 1950s. Davis and Stocker estimate that three-quarters of the finished grave goods in the warrior’s shaft come from Crete—a two-day’s sail to the south—rather than from local sources. There are also amber beads from the Baltic, amethyst from the Middle East, and carnelian that may originate in Egypt that might have been brought to Crete by Minoan traders. “The range and number of Minoan or Minoan-style artifacts in this tomb should greatly deepen our knowledge about the extent of this relationship,” says Shelmerdine.

The presence of beads, combs, and a mirror in a warrior’s tomb poses a puzzle. “The discovery of so much precious jewelry with a male warrior-leader challenges the commonly-held belief that jewelry was buried only with wealthy females,” says Stocker. She adds that Spartan warriors ritually combed their hair before battle, while Davis suggests that the jewelry may have been offerings to the goddess from the dead man on his journey to the underworld.

The unusual nature of the Pylos tomb could mean that he was a Minoan warrior or leader, rather than a native Mycenaean. Alternatively, he may have fought in Crete and brought back plunder or developed a taste for Minoan goods. Or he may have been a Mycenaean leader who wanted to establish a new tradition. What’s clear, the archaeologists say, is that he didn’t want to be associated with the group tombs that were the norm for locals both before and after his death.

Skeletal analysis that may help the team pinpoint his identity will soon get under way, says Stocker. The well-preserved teeth could reveal his genetic background, while examination of the pelvis area may tell researchers about his diet. Studying the bones also may help determine the cause of death. Stocker and Davis will close up the tomb in coming weeks to concentrate on analyzing their many finds.

The post Rare Unlooted Grave of Wealthy Warrior Uncovered in Greece appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

European artifacts, including (clockwise from top left) pieces of a slate writing tablet, clay tobacco pipes, a stoneware vessel, and a German token could help pinpoint where colonists retreated after abandoning Roanoke Island, North Carolina. PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK THIESSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The search began when an anxious Englishman named John White waded ashore on North Carolina’s Roanoke Island 425 years ago this month. Appointed governor of the fledgling Roanoke colony by Sir Walter Raleigh, White was returning from England with desperately needed supplies.

But when he stepped ashore on August 18, 1590, he found the settlement looted and abandoned. The vanished colonists had left behind only two clues to their whereabouts: the word “Croatoan” carved on a prominent post and “Cro” etched into a tree.

Ever since, explorers, historians, archaeologists, and enthusiasts have sought to discover the fate of the 115 men, women, and children who were part of England’s first attempt to settle the New World. Efforts to solve America’s longest running historical mystery, dubbed the Lost Colony, produced dozens of theories but no clear answers.

Now two independent teams say they have archaeological remains that suggest at least some of the abandoned colonists may have survived, possibly splitting into two camps that made their homes with Native Americans.

The evidence is that they assimilated with the Native Americans but kept their goods.

Mark Horton, archaeologist

A collection of newly discovered European objects, including a sword hilt, broken English bowls, and a fragment of a slate writing tablet still inscribed with a letter, could point to the presence of the colonists on Hatteras Island, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of their settlement on Roanoke Island, as well as at a site on the mainland 50 miles to the northwest.

Pictures: Lost Colony Artifacts

“The evidence is that they assimilated with the Native Americans but kept their goods,” says Mark Horton, an archaeologist at Britain’s Bristol University, who heads the excavation on Hatteras.

Meanwhile, at the mainland site on the Albemarle Sound near Edenton, N.C., Nick Luccketti of the First Colony Foundation believes that his group has unearthed pottery used by the lost colonists after they deserted their Roanoke settlement.

Members of both teams admit they can’t yet claim to have solved the vexing riddle. And many of their colleagues are skeptical that the artifacts can be definitively tied to the ill-fated colonists, given difficulties in dating them precisely.

“You have more work to do,” warned Ivor Noel Hume, a former Colonial Williamsburg archaeologist who excavated at Roanoke Island in the 1990s. Hume met with Horton and Luccketti last month to discuss their finds.

Picture of Gov. John White’s 1585 map of the area from today’s Cape Henry, Va, to Cape Lookout, N.C.
Governor John White’s 1585 map of the area from today’s Cape Henry, Virginia, to Cape Lookout, North Carolina, was remarkably accurate. In 2012 researchers discovered a symbol hidden beneath a patch that may have marked the location of a fort.
© THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
MORE ON THE LOST COLONY

Learn how Governor John White’s map reignited the search for the colonists
But the digs signal an important shift away from Roanoke Island, where researchers have found frustratingly few signs of an early European presence.

A Gentleman’s Ring

“Hey, a chunk of iron!” exclaims Margaret Dawson, a nurse and volunteer excavator, as she sorts through black earth at a site on Hatteras Island called Cape Creek. She and her husband Scott, a local teacher, founded the Croatoan Archaeological Society—named after the island’s native inhabitants—in 2009 and have sponsored Horton’s annual digs ever since.

Hidden in a live oak forest close to Pamlico Sound, Cape Creek was the site of a major Croatoan town and trade hub. Under Horton’s supervision, volunteers are busy searching through fine-mesh screens filled with mud from a nearby trench. The Dawson’s two young daughters are quick to spot tiny Venetian glass beads.

During a two-day excavation in July, the sieves produced ample Native American as well as European materials, including deer and turtle bones, homemade and imported brick, Native American pottery, hunks of European iron, parts of a 16th century gun, and a tiny copper eyelet that may have been used in clothing.

In 1998, archaeologists from East Carolina University found a ten-carat gold signet ring here engraved with a prancing lion or horse, an unprecedented find in early British America. The well-worn object may date to the 16th century and was almost certainly owned by an English nobleman.
Like most of the European finds at Cape Creek, however, the artifact was mixed in with objects that date to the mid-17th century, a full lifetime after the Roanoke colony was abandoned.

Horton argues that members of the lost colony living among the Croatoan may have kept their few heirlooms even as they slowly adopted Indian ways.

A gold signet ring excavated from the Cape Creek site on Hatteras Island, engraved with a prancing lion or horse, may have belonged to a prominent member of the Roanoke colony.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK THIESSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

One of the most unusual recent discoveries is a small piece of slate that was used as a writing tablet, along with a lead pencil. A tiny letter “M” can just be made out on one corner. A similar, though much larger, slate was found at Jamestown.

“This was owned by somebody who could read or write,” Horton says. “This wasn’t useful for trade, but was owned by an educated European.”

Another artifact unearthed recently at Cape Creek is part of the hilt of a rapier, a light sword of a type used in England in the late 16th century. In addition, a large copper ingot, a long iron bar, and German stoneware show up in what appear to be late 16th century levels. These may be signs of metallurgical work by Europeans—and possibly by Roanoke settlers—since Native Americans lacked this technology.

“There are trade items here,” Horton says, gesturing at the artifacts. “But there is also material that doesn’t come from trade.” Were these the personal possessions of the colonists?

Does X Mark the Spot?

If the gold ring inspired Horton’s digs on Hatteras, then a 1585 watercolor map drawn by White prompted the First Colony Foundation to turn its attention to the mainland.
Known as La Virginea Pars map and part of the British Museum’s permanent collection, the document made headlines in 2012 when researchers discovered a tiny, four-pointed star hidden under a patch layered atop the map. One theory is that the symbol may have marked the location of an inland fort.

“We think this represents the Roanoke colonists,” says Luccketti, holding out two slivers of green pottery.
If such a fort was built in that location, or even planned or discussed, then it might have been a logical destination for at least some of the displaced colonists.

“We think this represents the Roanoke colonists,” says Luccketti, holding out two slivers of green pottery. The shards were found on a recent weekend excavation at what the First Colony Foundation calls Site X, on the Albemarle Sound.

Picture of Pieces of English pottery called Border Ware

Pieces of English pottery called Border Ware recently found at a site near Edenton, North Carolina, may shed light on the Lost Colony’s fate. The dig by the First Colony Foundation led by archaeologist Nick Luccketti follows new revelations from the 1585 White map.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK THIESSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

In 2006, Luccketti and his colleague Clay Swindell from the Museum of the Albemarle investigated a site in the vicinity of the fort icon spotted later on White’s map. There they found a massive quantity of Indian pottery. Archaeologists suspect the site is a small Native American town named Mettaquem.

More recently, in an area adjacent to the village, the First Colony team uncovered English pottery similar to that dug up on Roanoke Island and common at Jamestown—but not typical in the second half of the 17th century, when English settlers filtered south from Virginia to settle North Carolina. Other pottery typical of the later 17th century is absent.

Excavators also found a metal hook possibly used to stretch hides or tents, as well as an aglet, a tiny copper tube used to secure wool fibers. Aglets were largely replaced with hook and eyes in the first half of the 17th century. They’ve shown up on Roanoke Island and at Cape Creek as well.

In all the team has found 275 pounds (125 kilograms) of Indian pottery covering several centuries of settlement, Swindell says. The English material—called Border Ware—accounts for a few dozen pieces amount to three or four pots.
He notes that the first recorded English settler in the area did not arrive until about 1655. Luccketti adds that, unlike the Cape Creek site, there are no obvious trade goods that suggest exchange instead of resident colonists. He thinks that the colonists may have moved here to live among Indian allies after White’s departure.

Picture of Professor Mark Horton at the Cape Creek site

Archaeologist Mark Horton oversaw a recent dig at the Cape Creek site on Hatteras Island. He argues that many of the European artifacts discovered here may be associated with the lost colonists.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK THIESSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

But Brett Riggs, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill not involved with the dig, notes that Native Americans were quick to scavenge any material left by Europeans.

“Anything of utility they took back to their homes,” he says. “They would vacuum it all up.” Even bottle glass was valuable for shaping arrowheads. He warns that European goods don’t equate to European settlers.

Foundation volunteers admit they have not clinched their case. “What we’ve found is tantalizing,” says Martha Williams, as she pauses from her work sifting soil on a recent morning at Site X. “I would love to see some definitive evidence, but what we have is fragmentary.”

We still don’t know what happened, and we are waiting to be persuaded.

Charles Ewen, archaeologist, East Carolina University

Dating material within a few decades to distinguish lost colonists from later settlers is difficult. Radiocarbon and other dating methods are not precise enough, and pottery styles don’t change uniformly over time and space.

For example, remains of a Border Ware pot found across the river in Edenton date to the late 17th century. “I couldn’t date artifacts between 1590 and 1630,” says Hume, a respected expert in colonial material. “Did someone keep something for six weeks or six years? It is very hard to know.”

Amid the new finds and trenches yet to be dug, archaeologists say they are hopeful new clues may yet crack the case of the missing colonists.

“There is still a lot of dirt to move,” says Swindell. And none of the groups have yet published detailed scholarly articles analyzing and cataloguing their discoveries.

“We still don’t know what happened, and we are waiting to be persuaded,” says Charles Ewen, an archaeologist at East Carolina University who is not part of either team. “I don’t think anything is off the table.”

The post We Finally Have Clues to How America’s Lost Colony Vanished appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

One of Nepal’s oldest and most venerated shrines, the Swayambunath temple complex suffered damage in the April 25th and May 12th earthquakes. Conservators hope to shore up the main stupa before monsoon rains arrive.PHOTOGRAPH BY NIRANJAN SHRESTHA, AP

High on a hill overlooking Kathmandu, the golden-spired Swayambhu shrine has drawn Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims for at least 1400 years. Now it is drawing conservators racing to fix ominous fissures in the main white-domed stupa as the summer monsoon fast approaches.

“There is fear of a landslide, and we have to take care of these cracks before the rainy season,” says Christian Manhart, the head of UNESCO’s mission in Nepal.
Nepalese and foreigners are working to pick up the pieces of the country’s heritage following the April 25 earthquake and a second tremor on May 12 that together killed more than 8,500 people, injured some 23,000, and left hundreds of thousands homeless. (Watch: Why Earthquakes Are Devastating Nepal.)
The quakes also wreaked havoc on Nepal’s ancient heritage that is central to the day-to-day lives of many Nepalese, and is a big draw for revenue-producing tourists. According to UNESCO documents, more than 30 monuments in the Kathmandu Valley collapsed in the quakes, and another 120 incurred partial damage.

Nepalese troops look for bodies at Patan Durbar Square. Looting at damaged and destroyed shrines and temples has been minimal, according to UNESCO officials. Bulldozers used to clear debris are a bigger threat.PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN SOKOL, PANOS

Manhart and Nepali colleagues estimate that it will take at least $160 million to repair and restore 1,000 damaged and destroyed monasteries, temples, historic houses, and shrines across the country. For this deeply religious nation, the reconstruction is a high priority, particularly in a time of despair and mourning. (Read about Nepalis interpreting the quakes as divine retribution.)

“In many places, devotees can’t access the temples because they are unsafe or simply destroyed,” says French archaeologist and art historian David Andolfatto, a UNESCO consultant in Kathmandu. “At Swayambhu, people used to go every morning to circumambulate the main stupa [a mound housing sacred relics]. Now it isn’t possible as the site isn’t safe.”

Trying to Stop the Bulldozing

Andolfatto was in his office when the second quake hit. He rushed to the street and jumped on his bike to check on Swayambhu, which lies just west of the city. He has spent most of his days there ever since.

Along with repairing the stupa cracks, he is supervising efforts to remove endangered mural paintings from a small nearby temple named Shantipur. This requires careful coordination with the local clergy, since only priests can enter the inner sanctuary.

VIRGINIA W. MASON, NG STAFFSOURCE: UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE CENTRE

In Kathmandu’s Durbar Square in the center of the capital, the Hanuman Dhoka Palace Museum is in a dire state, according to Manhart. “The walls and roof have disintegrated,” he says. “There are 6,000 objects and no storage space. Other museums have been destroyed.” (See 13 pictures from a father and son who are shooting quake-ravaged Kathmandu, their hometown.)

The army is guarding the site, and workers are now shoring up the walls and finding other parts of the palace to store objects before the rains arrive.

Fortunately, Manhart says, looting has been minor. Statues and carved lintels litter the sites of collapsed temples and shrines, but local communities are policing these areas. The biggest threat comes from bulldozers clearing debris that may contain ancient and fragile materials.

“The Ministry of Culture is trying to stop the bulldozing at places like Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, but the government is under pressure to find bodies that might be under the rubble,” Manhart says.

Ancient carvings at Patan Durbar Square are extracted from the rubble. Three other important squares in the Kathmandu Valley, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were hard hit by the quakes, but most are well documented. That will make it possible for them to be rebuilt.PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN SOKOL, PANOS

Buildings Collapsed in a Heap

According to UNESCO’s damage assessment, which will soon be publicly released, the destruction from the quakes is concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley, which holds a special place in South Asian history. While Buddhism largely disappeared in India by the 12th century, it continued to flourish in Kathmandu. “We have this wonderful mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism,” says Andolfatto.

For example, the pagoda-style temple likely evolved there and spread across Asia, he adds. And these traditions remain vibrant—or did, until the earthquakes toppled dozens of structures.

“People go to the temples on a daily basis for their worship or spend some time in the Durbar Square, enjoying the architecture, a cup of tea, and the mountains in the background—when the pollution is not too bad,” says Andolfatto.

UNESCO designated seven groups of multi-ethnic monuments clustered in the valley as a single World Heritage Site, including Swayambhu, the Durbar squares of Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, and the Hindu temples of Pashupati and Changu Narayan. Most of the temples were built with brick, timber, and mud mortar, with richly decorated windows and doorways and terracotta roofs often supporting golden cubes emblazoned with Buddha’s all-seeing eyes.

Especially hard hit in the quakes were the structures in the three Durbar squares, as well as Changu Narayan, according to Andolfatto. The 1655 temple in Sankhu in the northwestern end of the valley, famed as the site of caves where spiritual masters attained unusual powers, suffered extensive damage as well. Many of the ancient buildings simply collapsed in a heap.

Manhart says that UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture are focusing now on consolidating damaged monuments at risk of collapse during the coming rainy season that lasts through the summer. Then they will turn to restoring collapsed structures, including historic houses.
Fortunately, he says, there are extensive architectural drawings that provide a solid basis for reconstruction. Donations now top $400,000, he adds, and a total of $2 million is pledged from Sri Lanka, Germany, Austria, Japan, Korea, and other nations.

Drones provided by California-based Skycatch is providing engineers, planners, and donors with a clear view of the earthquake damage.PHOTOGRAPH BY CASEY STOKELY, SKYCATCH

Mapping Damage With Drones

Meanwhile, the California-based company Skycatch is flying drones above cultural heritage sites to provide engineers, planners, and donors with a clear view of the damage. The company’s CEO, Christian Sanz, sent a team with two drones to Kathmandu days after the first quake, and later donated a total of five drones, computers, and training sessions to UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Archaeology.

These vehicles, which are two-feet in diameter, cost about $10,000 to $15,000 and produce high-resolution 3D images. Sanz, who just returned from Kathmandu, says that so far the drones have shot 50,000 images over 50 flights, producing 50 maps that are now being used to analyze the extent of damage across the valley.

While the death toll and destruction from the tremors is horrific, it is not new. A tremor in 1255 killed up to one third of the valley’s population, and the Machhendra Nath temple at Patan collapsed during a quake in 1408. Other seismic events are recorded in 1681, 1810, and 1833.

A century later, in 1934, the most devastating tremor yet recorded in Nepal—8.0 on the Richter scale–killed double the number who died in the most recent quakes.
Andolfatto is confident that the Nepalese people will overcome the tragedy and recover a cultural heritage that is as much about private worship, group rituals, and communal festivals as it is about venerated buildings. “We’ve lost the spirit of many places,” he says. “But it will come back.”

The post A Race to Fix Nepal’s Ravaged Monuments Before Monsoons Hit appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

Amid the death, despair, and destruction that mark today’s Syria, there’s little good news for archaeologists and others who fear for the country’s remarkable cultural heritage. But in a windswept corner of the country, a dedicated group of local people is quietly protecting an important archaeological site, often at their own expense.

The high mound of Tell Mozan, which towers nearly 90 feet (27 meters) above the plain just three miles (5 kilometers) from the Turkish border in northern Syria, has so far escaped the looting, fighting, and religious extremism that have laid waste to so much of the region. The 2011 uprising against the Assad regime morphed into a fierce and protracted fight among competing factions.

“We were not expecting war,” says Giorgio Buccellati, an archaeologist from the University of California, Los Angeles, who began work at the site in the 1980s. He stopped work in late 2010 and planned to come back the following year. “We weren’t thinking that we faced a prolonged absence.”

Buccellati had good reason to return quickly. Shortly before the conflict began, his team uncovered intriguing evidence that Tell Mozan marked the start of a unique urban society that appears different from the cities that sprang up in southern Mesopotamia in today’s Iraq.

Archaeologists long thought that city life first developed in those southern settlements around 3500 B.C. and then spread to the north. But the finds at Tell Mozan, along with those at nearby sites, suggest that northerners had their own competing vision for urban life.

This unusual statue unearthed at Urkesh dates to about 2400 B.C. and may represent a spirit of the underworld in the Hurrian pantheon.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KENNETH GARRETT, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

Excavations have been on hold as the war plays itself out. Though violence has flared to the southeast, in the town of Tell Brak, the local staff at Tell Mozan say their villages remain quiet.

Nevertheless, the site, like all of Syria, remains off limits to foreign archaeologists. But half a dozen local men who worked on the excavations remain, ensuring the site’s security and maintaining the fragile mud brick walls that make up much of the ancient settlement.

“The site is still in good condition,” says Kameran A., one of the local staff, via email. Kameran, like his coworkers, requested that his last name not be used for fear of becoming a target of violence.

Another, Diadin M., adds that the real enemy at Tell Mozan is not marauding armies or Islamist iconoclasts, but rain, snow, and extreme temperatures. “These natural factors are what threaten the site,” he says. If the archaeological remnants can’t be protected, “then the efforts of the last 30 years will be wasted.”

Discovering a Lost City

Buccellati long suspected that Tell Mozan was ancient Urkesh, an important city that was a sacred center to the Hurrians, a people of unclear origins who influenced the later Hittite Empire the way the Greeks influenced Rome.

Two famous bronze lions—one now in Paris’ Louvre and the other at the Metropolitan Museum in New York—were sold in the 1940s in Amuda, a nearby market town. Each bears the inscription: “The king of Urkesh built the temple of the lion.”

Buccellati and his team uncovered a similar stone lion in a religious sanctuary at Tell Mozan, but without an inscription.
Then the excavators came upon clinching evidence: a treasure trove of personal seal impressions on clay, one of which read “Tupkish, king of Urkesh” and dating to about 2250 B.C. Dozens of others mentioned his queen Uqnitum. Scholars suspect she was royalty from the Akkadian Empire that controlled much of Mesopotamia at the time.

The team also uncovered a vast plaza in front of the temple terrace in the middle of the mound, and an impressive sweep of stone stairs leading up to the platform, where Buccellati identified both a temple and, at the other end of the plaza, a palace. The dramatic architecture is notably different from that found to the south.

More recently the excavators began probing underneath the third millennium B.C. levels and hit on the corner of a building that, Buccellati says, “is almost certainly a temple.” Seal impressions, ceramics, and radiocarbon dates show that it was used around 3500 B.C., at the same time that the first monumental buildings were built in southern Mesopotamia.

It’s a model of urbanism, but different from that of Sumer,” the land close to the Persian Gulf, he says. What makes the find so exciting, he adds, is that it is located in a spot on the human-built mound that is still 72 feet (22 meters) above the plain—which means there may be even older structures underneath.

More than 4,000 years old, this paved floor and beehive oven were once part of a busy bakery in Urkesh. Situated on the edge of the north Mesopotamian plain, the city provides archaeologists with a unique glimpse into a long-vanished culture.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KENNETH GARRETT, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

Keeping Hope Alive

To ensure that archaeologists will have a chance to probe deeper into the mound and Syria’s past, Buccellati is doing what he can to support the efforts of the Tell Mozan workers. But obtaining and transferring funds for wages and supplies is difficult, he says.

Sanctions imposed by Western countries on the Syrian government complicate efforts to funnel money into the country.

Before the war, the team constructed large curtains strung on metal frames to protect the fragile ancient walls from the wind and rain, but they require constant maintenance. Team members say they have been able to find local burlap and plastic sheets to patch torn areas, sometimes digging into their own pockets to advance money for urgently needed supplies.

“I bought, from my own funds, supplies such as thread and needles,” says Ibrahim K. The men say that while there has been no fighting in the vicinity, the economic situation is dire, food and medicine is expensive when they are available, and many people are leaving.

Buccellati remains optimistic that Syrians such as the villagers around Tell Mozan will protect archaeological sites that they know will benefit them in the future. Before the war, he planned to help create an eco-archaeological park around the site to attract tourists and provide local women with potential buyers for handicrafts. He hopes to still do so once peace prevails.

Until then, he and other archaeologists can only hope that Syrian pride in their ancient heritage will ensure that at least some of the country’s past will emerge from the conflict intact, ready to reveal many still-buried secrets.

The post Saving an Ancient ‘Lost’ City in War-torn Syria appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

The post Saving Afghan Culture appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

“Don’t shoot! We’re Americans!” Henry Wright shouts as he thrusts his head out the window. It’s dark, but dead center in our headlights is a jumpy young U.S. marine aiming his weapon at the windshield of our white SUV. This team of archaeologists and journalists who’ve come to assess the damage to Iraq’s ancient sites had been warned of armed looters, not friendly fire. But cruising the backstreets of the battered town of Nasiriyah after dark in search of the local museum, we’ve run into a Marine roadblock. The museum, we discover, is now a military barracks.

Grim tales of mass looting have brought our expedition, sponsored last May by the National Geographic Society and led by Henry Wright, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology, to this dusty place where humanity’s first great cities once dominated the vast Mesopotamian plain. While media attention has focused on the loss—and recovery—of artifacts in Baghdad’s Iraq Museum, we’re investigating reports that poverty-stricken villagers and organized bandits are ransacking ancient mounds across the country, feeding the foreign appetite for antiquities. The five archaeologists on the team are anxious to see what’s happened to the sites in the decade since the 1991 gulf war prompted U.S. restrictions that kept Americans from digging in Iraq.

Our expedition finds both tragedy and reason for hope. Some sites resemble moonscapes, cratered with freshly dug holes and trenches where looters may have ripped out more artifacts in a few weeks than archaeologists have excavated in decades. Others shimmer intact and silent in the desert heat. While half the expedition team travels through southern Iraq, the other half probes the situation in the north, where the damage is less dramatic but still a cause for serious concern.

In Nasiriyah we are in luck. Marine Maj. Glenn Sadowski is extremely helpful. He has organized an armed escort to take Iraqi archaeologist Abdul Amir Hamdany to survey the local sites, and he invites us along. The two men are an unlikely duo. Sadowski is a strapping reservist whose platoon lost seven men during the 1991 gulf war. Hamdany is a soft-spoken scientist who’s been evicted from his own museum, where off-duty marines are pumping iron to heavy metal music. Neither speaks the other’s language. But Hamdany returns day after day to stand on the burning sidewalk and ask Sadowski’s help. “In the bazaars they are selling antiquities,” he says. “We have to do something.”

The aim of the National Geographic survey is to put a spotlight on the crisis. Without U.S. troops or paid Iraqi guards providing round-the-clock protection, many sites will remain vulnerable. Keeping Iraq’s treasures safe will require a level of security that at this point is elusive at best. But Hamdany knows that careful assessment of site damage is a critical first step. “You can tell he has a passion for this,” Major Sadowski says, after agreeing to supply the escort. “It’s the least I could do.” On such slender threads of trust and respect hangs the future of Mesopotamia’s past.

The post Beyond the Looting: What’s Next for Iraq’s Treasures? appeared first on Andrew Lawler.