BUDAPEST, HUNGARY—Telex reports that archaeologists unearthed the first-century A.D. tomb of a Roman physician in a central Hungarian necropolis. He was buried during the period when the Roman imperial province of Pannonia was being formed. Placed at the feet of the man, who died between the ages of 50 and 60, were two wooden boxes containing medical instruments, including needles, pincers, and silver-plated copper alloy scalpels that were fitted with interchangeable steel blades. A muller found near the man’s knee was likely used to mix herbs and other medicinal substances. Eötvös Loránd University archaeologist Levente Samu said that the high-quality equipment would have been suitable for performing complex medical procedures. The team is planning to conduct isotope analysis and DNA testing to determine the doctor’s place of origin

Working with the University of Ottawa, the researchers published their early findings in Egyptian Archaeology and have returned to Philae to advance the project.

“It’s fascinating because there are similarities with today’s graffiti,” says SFU geography professor Nick Hedley, co-investigator of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded project. “The iconic architecture of ancient Egypt was built by those in positions of power and wealth, but the graffiti records the voices and activities of everybody else. The building acts like a giant sponge or notepad for generations of people from different cultures for over 2,000 years.”

As an expert in spatial reality capture, Hedley leads the team’s innovative visualization efforts, documenting the graffiti, their architectural context, and the spaces they are found in using advanced methods like photogrammetry, raking light, and laser scanning. “I’m recording reality in three-dimensions — the dimensionality in which it exists,” he explains.

With hundreds if not thousands of graffiti, some carved less than a millimeter deep on the temple’s columns, walls, and roof, precision is essential.

Typically, the graffiti would be recorded through a series of photographs — a step above hand-drawn documents — allowing researchers to take pieces of the site away and continue working.

Sabrina Higgins, an SFU archaeologist and project co-investigator, says photographs and two-dimensional plans do not allow the field site to be viewed as a dynamic, multi-layered, and evolving space. “The techniques we are applying to the project will completely change how the graffiti, and the temple, can be studied,” she says.

Hedley is moving beyond basic two-dimensional imaging to create a cutting-edge three-dimensional recording of the temple’s entire surface. This will allow the interior and exterior of the temple, and the graffiti, to be viewed and studied at otherwise impossible viewpoints, from virtually anywhere — without compromising detail.

This three-dimensional visualization will also enable researchers to study the relationship between a figural graffito, any graffiti that surrounds it, and its location in relation to the structure of temple architecture.

While this is transformative for viewing and studying the temple and its inscriptions, Hedley points to the big-picture potential of applying spatial reality capture technology to the field of archaeology, and beyond.

“Though my primary role in this project is to help build the definitive set of digital wall plans for the Mammisi at Philae, I’m also demonstrating how emerging spatial reality capture methods can fundamentally change how we gather and produce data and transform our ability to interpret and analyze these spaces. This is a space to watch!” says Hedley.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230330172143.htm

Published in Science Advances, the collaboration between UCL geneticists working alongside anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and linguists in Africa and beyond found evidence for when different peoples intermixed across the continent. Their findings indicate migration linked to vast empires such as the Kanem-Bornu and the kingdoms of Aksum and Makuria, as well as the spread of the Bantu language group, now spoken by close to one in four Africans.

Much of their study focused on Cameroon, where the researchers had collected the most genomes, and they show that the central African country has as much genetic diversity by some measures as the whole of Europe.

Representing one of the most densely sampled studies of African genomes to date, the study used new genetic data from more than 1,300 individuals from 150 ethnic groups from across Africa (primarily Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sudan, plus some more in southern Africa). By comparing genetic variation patterns between present-day people from different parts of Africa and elsewhere, they identified when intermixing occurred between different ethnic groups, which likely indicates relatively high migration at specific times and places.

First author of the study, PhD candidate Nancy Bird (UCL Genetics Institute) said: “We found evidence that roughly 600 years ago people from north and east Africa were migrating into the region of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, likely reflecting its huge impact on trade across Africa. Historical records of the empire are poor, so it is exciting to show how it possibly had such a geographically widespread impact on the continent, perhaps bringing in people from over 1,000 kilometres away.”

The Kanem-Bornu Empire, which covered present-day northern Cameroon and Chad, emerged around 700 CE and existed for more than 1,000 years, at its height spanning almost 2,000 kilometres across north and central Africa. It had vast trading networks linking northern, eastern and western Africa, resulting in genetic traces from all corners of the continent remaining in the DNA of the present-day people of Cameroon.

The study also sheds light on the Kingdom of Aksum, which encompassed northeast Africa and southern Arabia in the first millennium, and was considered one of the world’s four great powers of the third century alongside contemporary empires in China, Persia and Rome, as well as the Kingdom of Makuria, which spread along the Nile in Sudan between the fifth and 16th centuries and signed one of the longest lasting peace treaties in history with Egyptian Arabic groups.

Nancy Bird said: “We see evidence of migrations from the Arabian Peninsula into Sudan during the era of the Kingdom of Aksum, highlighting its importance as a global centre around 1,500 years ago. We also see evidence of Arabic groups migrating into Sudan down the Nile, but importantly these genetic signals almost entirely originate after the peace treaty between Makuria and Egypt had started to break down.”

Furthermore, while previous studies have highlighted the wide-ranging genetic impact of the migration of Bantu speakers from Cameroon into eastern and southern Africa, this study provides compelling evidence that expansions may have also extended to the west, possibly linked to climate change.

Nancy Bird said: “There is some evidence from other researchers of climate change altering the environment around 3,000 years ago, reducing forest coverage. That this corresponds with the timings of some ancient migrations we are detecting suggests climate change may be instigating or facilitating these large-scale movements of people.”

Senior author Dr Garrett Hellenthal (UCL Genetics Institute) said: “The African continent has an immense and complicated pre-colonial history often overlooked by western curricula. The legacy of colonialism means that many events in African history have been deliberately obscured or lost. This includes the range and influence of historical African empires.”

The staggering amount of genetic diversity uncovered in this paper and other emerging studies highlights the vital importance of analysing diverse African genomes from across the continent.

Dr Hellenthal added: “Despite the clear insights into medicine and human history that studying the immense genetic diversity found among African peoples can provide, African genomes have been, and still are, underrepresented in genetic studies compared to other regions of the world.”

Co-author Dr Forka Leypey Matthew Fomine (University of Buea, Cameroon) said: “There are still lots of ethnic groups, for example in Cameroon, that have not yet been studied, whose genomes likely hold many other secrets. We have the capability to collect these samples and are looking for interested collaborators.”

The study, supported by the BBSRC, Natural Environment Research Council, Wellcome, Royal Society and the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, involved researchers at UCL and other institutions in the UK, Cameroon, Ghana, Sudan, Canada, China, France, Finland, and the US.

An unmissable event in 2023, the exhibition Ramses the Great. The Gold of the Pharaohs, on tour in 10 cities, will be in Paris at the Grande Halle de la Villette, from 7 April to 6 September. Some180 exceptional works will be on show, including the famous Treasure of Tanis and the gold necklace of Psusenes I, the gold bracelet of Sheshonq I and the pendant of Princess Mereret. Visitors will discover the life, reign, and legacy of the Pharaoh Ramses the Great, through mummies, statues, sarcophagi, jewelry and gold and silver masks.

Happy Chaharshanbeh Suri 

Chaharshanbeh Suri is one of the ancient festivals of Iranians, celebrated on the eve of the last Wednesday of the year. Cheharshanbeh Suri involves an evening of celebration when families and friends get together and celebrate with specific rituals and eating festive food. Before the start of the festival, people gather brushwood in an open and exterior space. At sunset, after making one or more bonfires, they jump over the flames, singing sorkhi-ye to az man, zardi-ye man az to, which means; “let your redness [be] mine, my paleness yours”. Chaharshanbeh Suri is a celebration in praise of fire, light and happiness that has been remembered and celebrated by Iranians since the ancient times.

After the Islamic revolution, this festival was declared prohibited by the Iranian government like many Iranian (Persian) secular rituals and celebrations, however, Iranians have continued celebrating it every year.