By Jarrett A. LobellAs

As they strolled through a colonnaded peristyle shaded from the blazing sun or admired the stunning frescoes covering the walls of their opulent home, the residents of the Villa Arianna would have prized their view of Mount Vesuvius not too far in the distance. But the volcano would ultimately cause their demise, as the same eruption that engulfed Pompeii in A.D. 79 also buried the villa, which once covered some 27,000 square feet and contained dozens of rooms and lush gardens. While reexcavating in one of the villa’s small peristyles, a team from the Archaeological Superintendency of Pompeii recently uncovered a perfectly preserved, decorated lead water tank and several pipes that had been part of the residence’s state-of-the-art water supply system. The tank would have remained at least partially aboveground to allow access to two shut-off keys used to regulate the flow of water throughout the property.

The Romans are well known for water management on a grand scale, most notably the miles-long arched aqueducts that supplied the city of Rome as well as much of their vast empire. They also excelled at managing water for domestic use, especially in luxury estates such as the Villa Arianna, where running water, copious fountains, swimming pools, and private baths were de rigueur.

https://archaeology.org/issues/march-april-2023/collection/italy-stabiae-villa-water-supply/the-ancient-promise-of-water/’

ROME, ITALY—Italian police seized an array of third-century b.c. Etruscan artifacts that looters had found on their own land in the Umbrian town of Città della Pieve and had attempted to sell on the black market, according to a report in The Straits Times. Two sarcophagi, eight stone urns carved with Greek mythological scenes, a perfume bottle, and bronze mirrors are among the finds. The urns, some of which were inscribed with the family name Pulfna, were topped by lids featured sculptures of reclining women whose lips and jewelry still preserve traces of paint. In 2015, a farmer in Città della Pieve plowing land near the findspot of the recovered artifacts uncovered a hypogeum that also belonged to the Pulfna family.

World Philosophy Day

November 21

By celebrating World Philosophy Day each year, on the third Thursday of November, UNESCO underlines the enduring value of philosophy for the development of human thought, for each culture and for each individual.

Philosophy is an inspiring discipline as well as an everyday practice that can transform societies. By enabling to discover the diversity of the intellectual currents in the world, philosophy stimulates intercultural dialogue. By awakening minds to the exercise of thinking and the reasoned confrontation of opinions, philosophy helps to build a more tolerant, more respectful society. It thus helps to understand and respond to major contemporary challenges by creating the intellectual conditions for change

World Philosophy Day is an international day proclaimed by UNESCO to be celebrated every 3rd Thursday of November. It was first celebrated on 21 November 2002.

International Week of Science and Peace

November 10

The International Week of Science and Peace was first observed during 1986 as part of the observance of the International Year of Peace. The organization of events and activities for the week was undertaken as a non-governmental initiative; the secretariat for the International Year of Peace was informed of the preparatory activities and the final summary of events that occurred during the week. The organizers sought to encourage the broadest possible international participation in the observance.

Based on the success of the 1986 observance, the organizers continued their efforts in successive years. In recognition of the value of the annual observance, the General Assembly adopted resolution 43/61 in December 1988, which proclaims the “International Week of Science and Peace”, to take place each year during the week in which 11 November falls. The General Assembly urged Member States and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to encourage relevant institutions, associations and individuals to sponsor events and activities related to the study and dissemination of information on the links between progress in science and technology and maintenance of peace and security; urged Member States to promote international co-operation among scientists and required the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly as its forty-fifth session on the activities and initiatives of Member States and interested organizations in connection with the week.

The annual observance of the International Week of Science and Peace is making an important contribution to the promotion of peace. The Week encourages greater academic exchanges on a subject of universal importance while also generating greater awareness of the relationship of science and peace among the general public. Based on observances of Science and Peace Week to date, it may be expected that participation each year will increase, contributing to greater international understanding and opportunities for co-operation in the applications of science for the promotion of peace throughout the year.

ZERAVSHAN VALLEY, TAJIKISTAN—Haaretz reports that a team of archaeologists from the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan and Hebrew University excavated a rock shelter in Tajikistan’s Zeravshan Valley. The researchers have found it was inhabited by perhaps three different human species from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, or 150,000 to 20,000 years ago. Known as the Soii Havzak rock shelter, the site is an area of Central Asia long thought to have been sparsely inhabited during the Paleolithic era, but the team discovered it holds multiple layers of human occupation rich in bones, stone tools, and charcoal. The finds are still being analyzed, but the team believes that Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans may have all stopped at the rock shelter while migrating to other regions. “It turns out that the Zeravshan Valley, known primarily as a Silk Road route in the Middle Ages, was a key route for human expansion long before that,” says archaeologist Yossi Zaidner of Hebrew University. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. For more on early humans in Central Asia, go to “Denisovans at Altitude,” one of ARCHAEOLOGY’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2019.

https://archaeology.org/news/2024/11/05/major-paleolithic-site-excavated-in-central-asia/

A trilingual inscription discovered at Bisitun Pass in Iran was an early key to deciphering cuneiform script.

BOLOGNA, ITALY—According to a statement released by the University of Bologna, researchers led by classicist Silvia Ferrara have discovered that designs on Mesopotamian cylinder seals were the precursors to certain signs in proto-cuneiform script, an archaic writing system based on pictographs. Some 6,000 years ago, engraved cylinder seals were created to record the production, storage, and transport of textiles, crops, and other goods. The seals were rolled on clay tablets to create impressions of the cylinder’s etched designs. Sumerian scribes in the ancient city of Uruk, in modern-day southern Iraq, developed proto-cuneiform around 3000 b.c. Ferrara and her colleagues identified a number of seal designs concerning the transport of pottery and textiles that evolved into later proto-cuneiform signs used for the same purpose. “Our findings demonstrate that the designs engraved on cylinder seals are directly connected to the development of proto-cuneiform in southern Iraq,” Ferrara said. “They also show how the meaning originally associated with these designs was integrated into a writing system.” Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. For more on cuneiform, go to “The World’s Oldest Writing.”

CORNWALL, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that excavations at the site of King Arthur’s Hall on Bodmin Moor, which scholars once thought had been constructed in the medieval period, yielded evidence that it actually dates back some 4,000 years earlier. The monument consists of standing stones sourced from the immediately surrounding area that archaeologists began to suspect were erected during the Neolithic period. To confirm this hypothesis, a team led by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU) took sediment cores from the site that contained insects, pollen, and parasite eggs. Radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating yielded a date between 5,500 and 5,000 years ago. CAU archaeologist James Gossip said that people used and renovated the site multiple times until the medieval era. “Knowing when King Arthur’s Hall was built will help us understand this unique monument form better, how it might have originally been used and how it could have been used over time,” he said.

YONGCHENG, CHINA—Xinhua reports that a 5,000-year-old royal tomb of the Dawenkou Culture has been unearthed in central China’s Wangzhuang ruins, which have been dated to between 4000 and 2600 B.C. “The latest discovery indicates that the Wangzhuang ruins are not an ordinary settlement but rather, the capital of a prehistoric kingdom,” said Zhu Guanghua of Capital Normal University. The large tomb contained inner and outer coffins thought to have held the remains of a king, he added. More than 100 pottery vessels, some 200 jade ornaments, bone tools, and animal remains were also recovered. The burial was badly damaged in antiquity, however. “Most of the tomb owner’s skeletal remains within the wooden coffin are missing, with only a few toe bones left,” Zhu explained. “Small jade ornaments were scattered inside and outside the coffin and many stone ceremonial blades were deliberately broken,” he said. Researcher Li Xinwei of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences concluded that the artifacts from Wangzhuang show that the residents were influenced by other cultures living in the Yangtze River Basin, and eastern and central China.

Archaeologists in the Archaeological Zone of Dzibanché, Mexico, have unearthed three ancient relief facades depicting motifs tied to the powerful Kaanu’l dynasty, a ruling Maya lineage represented by the serpent symbol ( kaan in Mayan). These newly uncovered reliefs, located in structures near Ball Game II in Dzibanché, date back to the Early Classic period (AD 500-600) and depict symbols of power and ancestry, reinforcing Dzibanché’s role as an influential seat of the Kaanu’l lineage.