HAIFA, ISRAEL—Meir Edrey and his colleagues Adi Erlich and Assaf Yasur Landau, all of the University of Haifa, have analyzed pottery and clay figurines recovered in 1972
from an underwater site off the coast of western Galilee, according to a New York Times report. It had been previously thought that the hundreds of figurines and jars, which were
found in a jumble on the seafloor, were cargo on a Phoenician ship that sank in the Mediterranean Sea some 2,500 years ago. Edrey now suggests that the items, which vary in style, were deposited as offerings between the seventh and third centuries B.C. by members of a cult devoted to fertility and seafaring. Many of the figurines bear symbols associated with the mother goddess Tanit; dolphin symbols, which are also associated with Tanit; or depict a pregnant woman carrying a child. The researchers think the pottery may have been cast into the water as a ritual or a symbolic sacrifice. The position of the hands in some of the figurines, with the right hand upright and the left below the mouth, may indicate a vow in exchange for divine favor, Edrey added.

NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA—Drills, cutters, and leveling blades were employed more than 20,000 years ago to carve the mammoth-ivory figurines and beads recovered from
south-central Siberia’s Ust-Kova site, according to a statement released by Siberian Federal University . L.V. Lbova of Novosibirsk State University and Nikolay Drozdov of Siberian Federal University and their colleagues studied markings on the figurines and jewelry under a microscope in order to identify the tools that had been used to shape them. They then used those tools to recreate the objects and the markings. Chemical analysis of the ancient carvings indicates that the sculptures were painted with manganese and magnesium that was probably extracted from salt rocks located near the archaeological site. A figurine depicting a mammoth, for example, had been painted red on one side and black on the other. Layers of pigment on the beads suggest they were regularly repainted over many years. The researchers think that tool use studies could help them to identify the styles of individual master carvers, while a comparison of carving techniques between different archaeological sites in the region could offer information about relationships between the groups who once lived there

According to a report in The First News , carefully buried monkeys uncovered in an animal cemetery at the Red Sea port city of Berenice have been identified as rhesus
macaques, likely to have been imported by the Romans from India. It had been previously thought that the monkeys were guenons, which are local to the region, until
zooarchaeologist Marta Osypińska of the Polish Academy of Sciences and her colleagues used 3-D scans of the bones to compare them with those of other species. “This is a unique finding,” Osypińska said. “Until now, no one has found Indian monkeys in the archaeological sites in Africa. Interestingly, even ancient written sources don’t mention this practice.” After surviving the weeks-long journey across the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, she added, the rhesus macaques died young, probably because the diet they were fed in Berenice lacked necessary nutrients. All of the rhesus macaques in the cemetery were arranged in their graves as if they were sleeping. One had been covered with woolen fabric. Shells from the Indian Ocean, amphora fragments, a piglet skeleton, and three kitten skeletons were also recovered from the monkey burials.

Recently, Chief Justice Sadegh Jafari Chegni of Shush in Khuzestan Province, stated that his office was submitting an inhumane tradition called “Khoon Bas” to the Iranian Heritage Office for registration of the practice as an “intangible cultural heritage” of Iran.
“Khoon Bas” is a medieval custom for some tribes in different countries, including medieval Iran. This custom was performed after a clash between two tribes involved in war and bloodshed.
Tribal elders would then give one or more daughters from the victim’s tribe (from infancy) to the tribe that won the war, in order to stop the process of bloodshed and to put an end to any future conflict or revenge. However, the pardoned girl or girls who were married to the men of the slain tribe no longer had any rights, and were in fact sexually, physically, and mentally abused as slaves.
This awful and inhumane custom gradually disappeared and became illegal during the Pahlavi era. Unfortunately, after the Islamic Revolution, it was re-enacted because it was supported by Iranian government officials, similar to issues such as female circumcision, concubines, or religious prostitution, and other cruel and anti-woman rituals.
The officials of the Islamic government intend to register these kinds of customs as “Iranian cultural heritage” and intend to send them to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be placed on the world’s list of intangible cultural heritage.
Fortunately, recent protests by men and women who love Iranian culture and are against the registration of such horrific rituals have led to UNESCO formally asking the Cultural Heritage Organization of the Islamic Republic to stop the registration of such inhumane and anti-woman practices.
Yesterday however, the Chief Justice of Shush continued to stand by his previous statements and called UNESCO’s reaction “narrow-minded.”

NORFOLK, ENGLAND— The Guardian reports that artifacts dating back to the Tudor
period were discovered during roof repairs at eastern England’s Oxburgh Hall, which was built in the late fifteenth century by the devout Catholic Bedingfeld family. In 1559, Sir Henry Bedingfeld refused to sign the Act of Uniformity, which outlawed the Catholic
Mass. As a result, the Bedingfelds were persecuted and ostracized by the Tudor court. A complete personal prayer book with a gilded leather binding, found in an attic void by a builder, may have been concealed by the family. Among debris in a rat’s nest found
under floorboards in the northwest corner of the attic, archaeologist Matt Champion
recovered more than 200 well-preserved pieces of textiles such as silks, satin, leather,
velvet, wool, and embroidery dating to the late Tudor, Elizabethan, and early Georgian
periods, and scraps of handwritten music dated to the sixteenth century. Fragments of
pages from the hidden book were also found in the nest. Under the floorboards near the
attic’s south-facing windows, Champion found document fragments, evidence of wax
seals, and hundreds of pins, indicating that the well-lit area was used for sewing and
writing in the eighteenth century."

The Times of Israel reports that a 1,200-year-old soap factory has been unearthed in the Negev Desert by a team of Israel Antiquities Authority researchers, with the assistance of local high school students. Archaeologist Elena Kogen-Zehavi said the large, pillared structure where the olive oil–based soap was made dates to the Islamic Abbasid period, after the Arab conquest of the region. Turning olive oil and the ashes of the saltwort plant into hard cakes of soap was a complicated process, she explained. First, the liquid mixture was cooked for about seven days, and was then transferred to a shallow pool, where the soap hardened for another ten days, until it could be cut into bars, which dried for another two months. So much soap could have been produced at the site, Kogen-Zehavi added, that it was probably exported to Egypt and other parts of the Arab world.
To read about how the ancient village of Ein Gedi endured from the seventh century B.C. to the Byzantine period, go to ” Letter from the Dead Sea: Life in a Busy Oasis .”

According to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History , an international team of researchers analyzed satellite imagery and conducted field surveys to document hundreds of massive rectangular stone structures in northwestern Saudi Arabia, and discover more than one hundred additional structures.
Known as “mustatils,” the rectangular monuments are thought to have been constructed
by pastoralists for ritual use. Most of them consist of two large platforms connected by
long, low, parallel walls, and some locations have multiple structures built right next to
each other. Few artifacts have been found at the mustatils. Bones of wild animals and
what may have been wild aurochs or early domesticated cattle were found inside one of
the platforms. Charcoal from this site has been dated to 7,000 years ago, when the region was covered with grasses, dotted with lakes, and vulnerable to drought. Researcher Huw Groucutt explained that the very act of building mustatils probably helped to bond pastoralists living in such a challenging environment