Screen shot from the Free History Bytez Magazine

We’ve been working hard to put together the first ever History Bytez magazine, and have some great stories for you. As we have mentioned the magazine won’t cost you a cent, and we’re planning on keeping it that way. If anyone would like to advertise in the magazine (that’s how we’re hoping to fund it) please contact us at historybytez@gmail.com discounted ad placements are available for the first 3 issues.

We hope you are all as excited to see the first issue come out as we are. Please share the news with anyone that might be interested we need distribution to make this a success and keep the magazine free for readers.

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Restoration of Tut’s beard video

Restoration of Tut’s beard video

You might remember a story we put up some time ago about the mask of Tutankhamen being damaged and the beard breaking off as a result. The curators epoxied (yes they used epoxy) the beard back on leaving an unsightly join and damaging the mask. the German government offered to pay for repairs and a polish to fix the mask up. Attached below is a short video of the restoration crew working on the mask.

www.vubblepop.com/video/what-happens-when-king-tut-needs-beard-work

Viking outpost in Canada

Archaeologist Patricia Sutherland has been putting together a compelling case for the discovery for the second viking outpost ever discovered in the Americas. Whilst working on the Island of Baffin Sutherland found whetstones containing cupric-alloy traces, indicating the presence of bronze which was unknown to the native inhabitants but used by the viking metalsmiths.

Largest Neolithic site on Anglesey Discovered

An important neolithic site has been discovered by archaeologists surveying the site for a new school.

Glass spearhead found at Rottnest

Staff and students from The University of Western Australia’s School of Indigenous Studies have made a surprise discovery on an excursion to Rottnest Island (Wadjemup), uncovering a rare nineteenth century glass spearhead.

It’s the third time in the past year that UWA staff and students have uncovered spearheads on the island.

Earlier this year a Heritage Studies student found a glass spearhead, and last year a staff member unearthed a ceramic one.

The spearheads are believed to have been used by Indigenous men and boys who were imprisoned on island between 1838 and 1931.

Records show photographs of Sunday hunting day when the Indigenous prisoners would hunt to supplement their diet of barley, cabbage and porridge with fish, snake and quokka.

It is believed the prisoners would find a place on top of a hill often overlooking the mainland where they would make spear tips from scrap pieces of glass.

Professor Len Collard from UWA’s School of Indigenous Studies said the most recent discovery occurred when the 45 students and eight staff from the UWA School of Indigenous Studies were learning about the history of Indigenous prisoners on the island.  

“As I was digging around in the sand with my foot, something shiny glinted in the light and I recognised the object to be a glass spearhead,” Professor Collard said.

Viking fortress about to be excavated near Copenhagen

Last September the Viking age fortress was discovered in Denmark for the first time in 60 years, the fortress was discovered in part as a result of the use of drone technology. Although Vikings were in a number of countries circular Viking fortresses are unique to Denmark, this particular fortress, named the Vallo ring-fortress, is 145 m in diameter making it the third largest of the five that have thus far been found in Denmark. so far archaeologists have been able to determine that the ring-fortresshad 7 m high palisade walls

Archaeologists are now prepared to start a three-year excavation project at the site after receiving nearly 25,000,000 kroner in grants. the project will be handled jointly by the museum of South East Denmark and Aarhus University.

Featured image credit: Museum Sydøstdanmark

More late iron-age sacrificial finds Denmark

Archaeologists from Moesgaard Museum have been examining several bogs containing sacrificial offerings found in the area near Skødstrup just north of Aarhus in Denmark. Discoveries thus far have included the remains of one human and eight dogs next to tethering poles. The human skeleton is that of a young woman in her 20s and may help reveal more details about sacrificial customs in the late iron-age. 

The area is rich in finds with another bog east of the area, containing unique archaeological discoveries that have been unearthed since the 1800s, including swords, lances, parts of shields, human skeletons, a phallus and 13 dog remains.

Project Mosul: crowd sourcing reconstructions

Although the damage like that committed at Mosul by Isis should never have occurred in the first place Project Mosul is a fantastic way to contribute to the maintenance/reconstruction of our shared cultural heritage by making use of modern technology and software.

Volunteers are posting their own photos of artefacts originally kept at the Mosul archaeological Museum, the images are being put into groups and then through the use of photogrammetry being assembled into a three dimensional objects that can assist in later reconstruction work or where necessary recreation.

There are a number of ways to become involved in this project as the organisers of Project Mosul are looking for volunteers to help in gathering crowd sourced imagery, masking the images and converting them into three-dimensional images, requisite levels of technical knowledge/expertise vary according to task. Go visit Project Mosul and see if you can contribute, or join the project by visiting the Project Mosul website.

featured image credit: http://info-direkt.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/isis.jpg

Are relics from Pompeii cursed?

According to Pompeii's archaeological superintendent Massimo Osanna the site has received around 100 packages returning stolen relics in recent years. According to Osanna many of these are accompanied by letters indicating that the thief is returning the artefact because they believe that the artefact has brought them nothing but bad luck.

Some returns are simply the result of of a guilty conscience on the part of the person who stole the relic in the first place, a recent incident saw a mosaic tile stolen in the 1970s returned by an Englishwoman whose parents had stolen the tile whilst on holiday.

The superintendent is considering using the letters as the centrepiece for a future exhibition. This comes as four French tourists (three brothers and a sister) were arrested and charged with aggravated theft after being caught with pieces of plaster from 2000 year old frescoes in their backpacks.

Archaeologists in Israel may have found Maccabee tomb

Israel’s government Antiquities Authority recently said that an ancient structure that it is excavating on the side of the highway appears to match ancient descriptions of the tomb of the Jewish rebels the Maccabees. The tomb is located in the Ben Shemen Forest near the Israeli city of Modiin.

The Maccabees conducted a guerrilla war against the Seleucid Empire and Hellenising Jews between 167 – 160 BC. The traditional view is that the revolt was the direct result of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV forcing the Jews to worship Greek gods. Antiochus IV’s policy was a direct reversal of the policy implemented by his father, Antiochus III, who had granted the Jews religious autonomy because they had supported him in his war against the Ptolemies.

French scholar Charles Clermont-Ganneau first excavated this site is the late 1800’s and found a mosaic floor featuring a Byzantine Christian cross. This month, Israeli archaeologists and volunteers cleared away rubble and exposed the simple mosaic cross for the first time in more than 100 years.

The cross is seen as a clue as it appears on the floor of a burial niche and is the only Byzantine-era site where a cross decorates the floor of a burial vault.  This likely indicates that it may have marked the spot of an important figure and it is likely that the Byzantines — themselves early Christians — identified this site as the Maccabees’ tomb.

Earliest known winemaking facilities discovered in Armenia

A cave discovered in 2007, in the Zagros mountain range in Armenia has been determined to contain the oldest known, almost complete, winemaking facility. Scientific examination by UCLA researchers has confirmed the find. The equipment has been dated to about 4100 BC making it over 6000 years old, the equipment included a wine press likely to have been used to ferment grapes, a vat that could hold approximately 50 litres of wine and potsherds with evidence of wine soaking on them. This find is approximately 1000 years older than the nearest comparable discovery. Archaeologists were able to identify a shallow basin made of pressed clay measuring about 1 m x 1 m surrounded by a thick rim as the Wine press in part because handfuls of grape seeds and the remains of pressed grapes surrounded the top of the basin.

Spitfire excavated 75 years after fatal crash

Archaeologists have finalised the excavation of wreckage belonging to the Spitfire that crashed 75 years ago. The crash took place in the field at Holme Lode farm, Cambridgeshire, on November 22, 1940.

The pilots body was recovered at the time of the crash and buried in his home town of Brighton. Among the items archaeologists discovered were the Spitfires propeller, oxygen tank and the pilot’s helmet.

Making Papyrus

Although filmed as part of a presentation to tourists this is a really interesting video, showing the steps involved in the manufacture of papyrus:

Iberian Shipwreck Discovered

Underwater research being conducted of Cape Creus, Catalonia strongly suggests that the pre-Roman Iberians were seafarers. This is the second boat dated to roughly this period found of the Spanish coast. 

The vessel which was first discovered about 120 years ago, has been dated to 40 - 30 BC and has been found to have been carrying about 100 amphorae.

The 10 metre long vessel is located about 30 metres below the surface which has led to some delays and issues with the exploration as divers are required to decompress for 20 minutes for every 30 minutes spent with the wreck.

Image credit: Espejo Navegantes/ABC

1967 – A day after being captured, Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed

9 October – On this day

Ernesto “Che” Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous counter-cultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.

Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces. Bolivian President Rene Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The executioner who volunteered to kill Guevara was Mario Terán, an alcoholic 31-year-old sergeant in the Bolivian army who had personally requested to shoot Guevara because three of his friends from B Company, all with the same first name of “Mario”, had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara’s band of guerrillas.

When the time arrived, Sergeant Terán entered the hut where Guevara was held and immediately ordered the other soldiers out. Alone with Terán, Che Guevara then stood up and spoke to his executioner: “I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot. Do it.” Terán responded by pointing his M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle at Guevara, but hesitated upon which Guevara angrily spat at Terán, his last words: “Shoot me, you coward! You are only going to kill a man!” Terán then opened fire, hitting Guevara in the arms and legs. For a few seconds, Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Terán then fired several times again, wounding him fatally in the chest. Che Guevara was pronounced dead at 1:10 pm local time in all, Guevara was shot nine times by Terán. This included five times in his legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, once in the chest, and finally in the throat.

Popularised cropped image taken by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960, at the La Coubre memorial service.

1604 – Supernova 1604 first observed

9 October – On this day

Supernova 1604, also known as Kepler’s Supernova, Kepler’s Nova or Kepler’s Star, was a supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus.

Appearing in 1604, it is the most recent supernova to have been unquestionably observed by the naked eye in our own galaxy, occurring no farther than 6 kiloparsecs or about 20,000 light-years from Earth. Visible to the naked eye, Kepler’s Star was brighter at its peak than any other star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of −2.5. It was visible during the day for over three weeks.

1514 – The marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor

9 October – On this day

Mary Tudor (18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533), was the third daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and became Queen of France through her marriage to Louis.

Mary Tudor drawn when she was Queen of France

Cardinal Wolsey negotiated a peace treaty with France, and on this day in 1514, at the age of 18, Mary married the 52-year-old King Louis XII of France at Abbeville. Despite two previous marriages, Louis had no living sons, and sought to produce an heir; but he died on 1 January 1515, less than three months after marrying Mary, reputedly worn out by his exertions in the bedchamber. Their union produced no children. Following Louis’ death, the new King Francis I made attempts to arrange a second marriage for the beautiful widow.

Mummification more common and widespread than previously believed.

Archaeologists at the University of Sheffield working with colleagues from the University of Manchester and University College London have discovered that some ancient Briton burials are consistent with a prehistoric mummy from northern Yemen.

The British climate is not conducive to the maintenance of organic materials suggesting that the prehistoric mummies in Briton will have lost their preserved tissue except  in exceptional circumstances. However, new methods using microscopic bone analysis allow archaeologists to determine whether a skeleton has been previously mummified.

“Our research shows that smoking over a fire and purposeful burial within a peat bog are among some of the techniques ancient Britons may have used to mummify their dead. Other techniques could have included evisceration, in which organs were removed shortly after death. The idea that British and potentially European Bronze Age communities invested resources in mummifying and curating a proportion of their dead fundamentally alters our perceptions of funerary ritual and belief in this period.” explained Dr Tom Booth

In time this research may demonstrate that mummification, which is generally believed to have been exotic and novel, may in fact have been a widespread and relatively common practice.

Featured image: Geoff Morley

Macromannic aristocrat's grave discovered

The grave was discovered in 2010 by metal detectorists conducting an illegal search in the Czech Republic. Archaeologists from Poland’s Rzeszów University have excavated a 2,000 year old stone-lined grave revealing a young man believed to be a part of the Macromannic aristocracy.

He was buried in a wooden coffin constructed from a hollowed out tree trunk and wearing a leather belt with a buckle he was also buried with a clay and a bronze vessel. However, the empty space at the foot of the grave suggests that the Grave may have been robbed and is missing high value objects. As result of Geophysical surveys archaeologists are hopeful of finding additional Marcomannic tombs in the region.

Featured image: Agnieszka Půlpánová-Reszczyńska

New Roman Mosaic discovered

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered an ancient Roman mosaic in a Tuscan village. The mosaic was part of the floor of a luxury Roman villa that stood from the 1st  to the 6th century AD. The mosaic was built in two stages featuring two different designs. the first stage dates to the second half of the 4th century AD featuring geometric patterns surrounded by floral motifs the second dates to the 5th Century AD features octagonal shapes decorated with animals, flowers and a portrait.

Read the Full story here

Feature image: Rossella Lorenzi

20 New lines of an ancient epic found

The 18th century BC epic of Gilgamesh has had its chapters reordered and been added to with the discovery of 20 new lines of text. The tablet which clarifies the order of the chapters and provides the new text was purchased for $800 by The Slemani Museum in 2011 from an antiquities smuggler along with 80-90 other tablets. Since the invasion of Iraq the museum has bought antiquities, no questions asked, rather than allowing their sale on the blackmarket.

The tablet adds new verses to the story of how Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew the forest demigod Humbaba. Listen to the new text below.

Read the academic article about the find here

Feature image: “Tablet V of the Epic of Gligamesh. Newly discovered. The Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq.” by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons