As creators and content authors of the Equator AI channel, we understand that some of the AI-generated images in our videos show historical figures with makeup or long painted nails, which may not be historically accurate. We know our ancestors didn’t follow these modern trends, but we’re hopeful that AI will continue to improve and account for these details over time. We kindly ask for your understanding and patience as the technology evolves. Thank you so much for your continued support!
This shaman woman was buried with an infant, who was not her child, 9,000 years ago.
We have already written about the famous burial of a Mesolithic woman in Bad Dürrenberg (Central Germany), but new details have emerged. This ancient grave was discovered during sewage works in 1934. The burial struck the discoverers with a rich inventory. A female skeleton was sitting upright, squatting, and between her thighs lay the bones of a baby. Everything was covered with a layer of red ochre.
The grave contained jewellery made of deer, auroch and boar teeth, stone tools, flint microliths in a crane bone container, bone and horn objects, fragments of three turtle shells and river mollusk shells. The burial is still considered one of the richest Mesolithic graves in Germany.
After World War II, the find was forgotten for a long time, and remembered in the XXI century. In 2019, specialists conducted new excavations, and the skeleton of the woman was examined in detail. In autumn 2022, the book ‘The Mystery of the Shaman’ was published, entirely devoted to the monument in Bad Dürrenberg.
At the time of her death, the woman was 30-35 years old and 165 cm tall. No decay was found on her teeth, but the first incisors of the upper jaw were so erased that the tooth canals were exposed. The woman had probably been using her teeth very actively as tools. The result was an inflammation that affected the entire jaw. It's believed that this may have eventually led to the woman's death.
Judging from the abnormalities of the cervical vertebrae, the woman suffered from neck problems that made it impossible to turn and bend her head. The idea is that certain head positions clamped an artery, resulting in an impaired blood supply to the brain. This means that the woman could move her head to quickly render herself semi-conscious. A property valuable to someone who communicates with otherworldly forces! This, as well as the presence in the burial of two headdresses made of reindeer antlers, led archaeologists to assume that the woman was some kind of shaman.
The baby's skeleton is poorly preserved. At the time of death, the poor thing was not yet a year old. DNA analysis showed that the child was a boy, who was not a close relative of the woman. So why was the baby buried with her? It's a mystery.
Geneticists also found that the woman had blue eyes, dark hair and dark skin - a typical set-up for Mesolithic hunters in Western Europe.
Surprisingly, the burial appears to have been visited by humans for a very long time. Some items were found to have been placed in the grave 600 years after the woman's death.
This girl fled war and epidemic, but the plague caught up with her 400 years ago.
In 2002, in Ochla, a village near Zielona Góra, Poland, a landowner building a veranda came across the bones. A victim of a crime? A World War II soldier? The landowner called the police. However, instead of a Wehrmacht soldier's badge, the police found silver thalers. It became obvious that the find could be several centuries old, and archaeologists were invited to the site. After the excavations, the scientists transported the findings to the Archaeological Museum in Svidnica, where they can still be seen today.
A few years ago, experts conducted a detailed study of the skeleton from Ochle. It turned out that the bones belonged to a girl in her 20s, of short stature (153 cm). The unknown woman was given the name ‘Lyubushka’. But when did she die? This question was answered by coins: 11 silver thalers. The oldest was minted in 1557 and the youngest in 1629, and this coin showed almost no signs of wear. The coins came from different places and mints, e.g. three from Saxony, four from the Netherlands. There was even a bishop's thaler from Salzburg. At that time, money travelled with merchants and soldiers, knowing no borders. The 11 thalers were of great value. The girl was most likely a townswoman.
Researchers believe that ‘Lubushka’ died around 1630. There was the Thirty Years War, in the city was rampant hunger, robbery and disease. The chronicles also record a plague epidemic, which killed two-thirds of the inhabitants of Zielona Góra at that time. Many people, fleeing from the plague and hostile armies, fled from the town to Ochla. Perhaps ‘Lyubushka’ was among the refugees, as her grave was located at the crossroads where the route from Zelena Góra to Ochla was travelled.
Since the girl had her coins with her, it means that she was buried in a hurry, and the grave is rather deep - 1.35 metres, a standard burial in those times was about 70 cm deep. This suggests possible death by plague. That is why the body was not searched and buried deeper, scientists believe. True, no signs of disease were found on the bones, but the plague leaves traces if it drags on, and ‘Lyubushka’ probably died quickly.
Anthropologists found on the girl's teeth signs of years of starvation or diseases suffered in childhood. Apart from coins, only tiny traces of a leather pouch containing thalers were found along with the bones. There are greenish spots on the phalanges of the right hand, probably from a bronze or brass shirt clasp. Two small iron staples that were part of the buckle were also found.
Scientists decided to recreate the appearance of ‘Lyubushka’, for which they made a computer tomography of the skull. The virtual portrait was made by expert criminalist Dorota Lorkiewicz-Muszyńska. DNA analysis helped to establish the colour of eyes and hair. ‘Lubushka’ was provided with long straight hair - such simple hairstyles were common in her time.
In 2019, the exhibition ‘Lubushka Jane Doe, or Private History of the Times of War and Plague’ (Jane Doe is a conventional name often given to an unidentified woman in English-speaking countries) was dedicated to the 17th-century girl.
2700 years ago, this powerful prince often swung his sword, and his left arm had poor movement due to a badly healed fracture of the clavicle.
The Eichlechen barrow field, located in the Frankfurt City Forest (Germany), began to be explored back in the 18th century. During salvage excavations during the construction of a motorway in 1966, archaeologists managed to unearth a large mound located in the middle of a group of more than 50 smaller mounds. The central mound was originally 3.5 metres high, 36 metres in diameter and topped by a stone stele.
The mound contained the burial of a so-called ‘Celtic prince’, dated to 700 BC. In the tomb, archaeologists found many bronze and iron objects, as well as ceramics. Finds include a bronze sword, two gilded knives, chariot parts, toiletries, harness, a richly decorated collar, bronze and earthenware, and personal hygiene items including tweezers and ear cleaning spoons.
The rich burial from Frankfurt has become a crucial discovery for European Iron Age researchers. Recently, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the excavations, archaeologists organised an interdisciplinary study of the burial mound complex using the latest scientific methods, including a detailed analysis of the skeleton of the ‘prince’.
The age of the man, based on the condition of his teeth and the overgrowth of his skull sutures, was about 50 years old. He was tall (175 cm), physically developed, in good health and apparently had a good diet. His teeth were in decent condition, with decay only on one molar.
There was a healed fracture on the left clavicle. As a result of this, the left arm had to move poorly. Because of this, as well as the frequent use of a bronze sword, the muscles of the right arm are hypertrophied. In addition, degenerative changes were found in the lumbar spine. The osteochondrosis must have caused pain and somewhat restricted the man's movements.
In the course of the study, forensic anthropologist Constanza Niss created a reconstruction of the ‘prince's’ face. This required reconstructing the man's deformed and partially broken skull. The missing parts of the skull were restored by mirroring the existing fragments.
According to genetic analysis, the man had blue eyes and blond hair.
The reconstruction was fitted with a hairstyle known from the image of a warrior found on a pre-Roman Iron Age monument in Austria (5th century BC).
These two are an artilleryman and a bosun who served on an English ship that sank almost 500 years ago. Both have very bad teeth; both suffered from arthritis and poor nutrition.
The warship Mary Rose was the flagship of the English navy under Henry VIII Tudor. The ship fought in several wars, served for 33 years, and sank on 19 July 1545 during an attack on French galleys in the Solent, a strait north of the Isle of Wight. The causes of the ship's wreck are not entirely clear. According to one version, the old ship lost stability, during a sharp turn in a strong gust of wind scooped up water with open gun ports and went to the bottom.
Attempts to raise the ship were made immediately after the shipwreck, but without success.
‘The Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1836. The ship was examined by divers diving in newly invented rubber suits and metal helmets. They were able to bring some items to the surface, including antique guns. Nineteenth-century explorers tried to penetrate the ship, which was covered with a thick layer of shells and silt, using gunpowder charges. Fortunately, the Mary Rose escaped total destruction as a result of such barbaric survey methods.
The Mary Rose wreck site was found again in 1971. A specially established Mary Rose Foundation organised an operation to raise the ship, which proved to be one of the most complex and expensive marine salvage projects in history. The ship had to be carefully cleared of silt before it could be lifted. More than 500 divers and 70 laboratory personnel were involved in the project. The work was carried out from 1979 to 1982, totalling more than 22,000 hours of diving time. The Mary Rose wreck project proved that underwater excavations could achieve a level of accuracy comparable to conventional, land-based archaeology.
The surviving part of the ship and the thousands of artefacts found on it are of immense value as a kind of time capsule. More than 26,000 artefacts were brought to the surface, including clothing, musical instruments, books, games, navigational devices, personal hygiene items, 8 chests with carpentry tools, 9 barrels with meat residues, a huge number of weapons, and the chest of a barber-surgeon. The remains of animals - a dog, a rat and a frog - were also discovered. The dog, an English Toy Terrier, was apparently used as a rat catcher. Based on DNA, it was a male.
Archaeologists discovered the skeletons of 90 people - that's about half of the crew. Analysis of the bones showed that many of the sailors suffered from malnutrition. Anthropologists recorded signs of rickets and scurvy. In addition, some crew members developed arthritis from constant heavy lifting, and many had broken bones.
Anthropologists made a number of facial reconstructions of the crew members. The two in the photo are the gunner and the bosun. The reconstructions were created for an exhibition on the Mary Rose at Whitgift School in South Croydon.
The bosun was in his early 40s and 163cm tall. Like many other crew members, he had very bad teeth with decay, tartar and abscesses. In his youth, the bosun had been engaged in physical labour. A silver whistle, which was used to control sailors on deck, was found on the skeleton.
Although the gunner is quite young (20-30 years old), his teeth are quite bad: 11 were missing at the time of his death and most of the remaining ones were badly decayed. His spine was also in poor condition, probably as a result of years of carrying guns, heavy nukes and powder charges.
This woman lived near the famous settlement of Arkaim (Chelyabinsk region) in the Late Bronze Age.
Her skeleton was discovered in the largest burial mound of the Kizilskoye I burial ground, on the bank of the Ural River, not far from the remains of a fortified settlement of the Sintashti culture. The Kizilskoye settlement is the westernmost of those belonging to the so-called ‘Country of Cities’.
Excavations of the monument have been carried out since the 1960s. An aerial survey of the burial ground was carried out, which revealed about 30 burial mounds located compactly along the shoreline in an area of 200 metres. The largest barrow (Barrow No. 2) is 22 metres in diameter and 0.4 metres high. In this area the local inhabitants were actively grazing cattle, the mounds were deteriorating and were about to disappear from the surface of the earth, so in 2008 archaeologists began to investigate the burials. Four structures in the northern part of the burial mound were excavated.
The largest mound was a rather complex construction: the oval burial ground was surrounded by a ditch 3.5 metres wide and about 1.5 metres deep. In front of the ditch were the remains of a wall made of mud-brick bricks. A second earthen wall, about 6 metres in diameter, surrounded the burial chamber, which in turn was carefully enclosed with large clay blocks. Burials were carried out in deep burial chambers.
The dead in barrow 2 were lying on their right side. The dead were buried in a layer of clay, sometimes mixed with red ochre. The burial inventory consisted of ceramic vessels and metal items.
The main pit of barrow 2 contained the bones of a woman aged 24-25. In addition, the remains of a man and a teenager aged 13-15 were found in the barrow. The skulls of the man and woman are elongated, the faces are broad, and the forehead is sloping. According to these features, the people of the Kizil burial mound are close to the Eastern European representatives of the Yamnaya culture. The specificity of the Kizil people is a small protrusion of the nasal bones.
Sculptural reconstruction of the face of a woman from barrow 2 was made by anthropologist Alexei Nechvaloda. A virtual portrait based on this sculpture was made by Philip Edwin, who provided the woman with sandy-blond hair and grey eyes, although he pointed out that without genetic data it is ‘guesswork’.
Meet the “ Lady of the Lilies”. This is a female mummy from Egypt that Count Leonetto Ottolenghi bought back in the 19th century along with the sarcophagus and other objects for the Archaeological Museum of Aquileia (Italy) he founded. The magnificent sarcophagus was the last home of a wealthy woman who probably lived in Thebes or near the capital of the New Kingdom between the XXI (1070-945 BC) and XXII dynasties (945-715 BC).
The mummy was in unfavorable conditions and poorly preserved, but a CT scan taken a few years ago revealed much about the deceased.
" Lady of the Lilies" died relatively young, aged 30-35 years. She was about 150 centimeters tall. The woman's limbs and spine contain no lifetime damage, but she had lost almost all of her upper teeth during her lifetime, probably as a result of some accident. Because of this, the Egyptian woman's face was somewhat asymmetrical.
Scholars do not know her name or titles. The inscriptions on the sarcophagus leave the identity and role of the deceased in shadow. However, the exquisite headdress and the precious amulets depicted on the sarcophagus speak of her status. The face of the deceased is decorated with a wig with ribbons and large flowers: white and blue lilies (hence the nickname given to the mummy).
The sculptural portrait of the “Lady of the Lilies” was made by expert forensic artist Walter Capussotto under the supervision of Marinella La Porta. The reconstruction was presented at the exhibition “Egypt. Gods, Pharaohs, Men” in Jesolo in 2017.
This man died in the wreck of one of the ships of the Lapérouse expedition in 1788.
In 1785, King Louis XVI appointed Jean-François de Lapérouse to lead the French circumnavigation of the globe. The mission, which was to rival the exploits of Captain Cook, was both practical and scientific. On the frigates Bussol and Astrolabe, 225 sailors, officers and scientists set sail, equipped with the best scientific instruments, provisions and goods for trade. They crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn, stopped at Easter Island and Hawaii, then continued on to Alaska; on their return south they passed Kamchatka, the coast of China and the Philippines. In January 1788, the expedition landed in Botany Bay, Australia. Laperouse's crew resumed their voyage on March 10, 1788, leaving the last set of letters to the British navy. They were expected to return to France in the summer of 1788, but the expedition disappeared without a trace. It is said that Louis XVI, on his way to the guillotine in 1793, asked his executioners, “Is there any news of Lapérouse?”
In 1826, Irish sea captain Peter Dillon saw European objects at Tikopia in the Solomon Islands that locals told him came from the nearby island of Vanikoro. At the head of an exploring vessel, Dillon traveled to Vanikoro in 1827. He was able to determine that both of Laperouse's ships had been wrecked on coral reefs during a storm, that the crew members had built a boat from the wreckage and sailed away in it, and that some survivors remained on the island. One of the shipwrecks was discovered just four kilometers southwest of the island. The artifacts found, including a ship's bell and a silver sword hilt, were taken to Paris, where they were identified as belonging to the expedition.
In 1962, New Zealand diver Rhys Discombe found a second ship: it lay on a reef about a kilometer east of the first wreck. Systematic research began in 1981 and recovered many important items from the wreck. Traces of the camp were finally discovered on an island in the Payou area, near the Laurentian Delta, in 1999: among other things, archaeologists found musket bullets, a candlestick and part of a military compass.
However, the most stunning discovery was made by underwater archaeologists who surveyed the wreck: in 2003, at a depth of 15 meters, under a thick layer of sediment, they found a skeleton. The skeleton is perfectly preserved, which is highly atypical for bodies found in seawater.
Anthropological studies indicate a male European, 30 to 34 years old, 1.65 to 1.70 meters tall, with poorly developed musculature. The man's left humerus was deformed, indicating an old compound fracture. The right femur was shorter than the left, although this did not affect walking. The dentition was incomplete (teeth lost after death), but the teeth were surprisingly healthy. The canines showed severe wear and tear.
Death occurred probably 201±29 years ago, which is quite compatible with the disappearance of two ships of the Lapérouse expedition. But it is definitely not Lapérouse - he was 47 at the time of the disappearance of the Lapérouse expedition. The researchers assumed that the skeleton belonged to an officer of the Royal Navy or a scientist. This was confirmed by the fact that the skeleton was found at the stern of the ship, where the commanders were usually placed. Reconstruction of the man's face on the skull was performed by the famous specialist Elizabeth Daines.
At first it was believed that the deceased was an artist and botanist Duchet de Vancy, who was on board the “Astrolabe”, but this idea was abandoned in 2005, when the wreckage of the ship was identified as the “Bussol”. Currently, there are two versions. According to one, the deceased is Jean-André Monge, a chaplain and naturalist who was 36 years old. This idea is supported by the fact that a number of ecclesiastical objects were found near the skeleton. Another possible candidate is the astronomer Joseph Lepot d'Ajele. The facial reconstruction is similar to his surviving portrait.
In 1607, this young man, one of the first English settlers in the New World, was killed by the Indians. Before his death, he was starving and suffering greatly from a bad tooth.
The English landed in North America on May 14, 1607. They named the new fort Jamestown in honor of King James I. The colonists faced significant hardships - disease, starvation, and Indian attacks.
In August 2005, during an excavation, archaeologists discovered a skeleton near the west wall of the fort. The absence of any European artifacts in the grave fill and other signs indicated that the burial occurred in the first weeks or months of settlement at Jamestown.
The grave was shallow and too short, causing the skull to rest against its eastern wall. Apparently, those who buried this man were in a great hurry. There was no coffin, but judging from the position of the legs, the body was wrapped in a shroud, which is typical of the early 17th century.
The skeleton belonged to a young man, probably a teenager. Judging by the development of long bones and teeth, the age of the deceased was about 15 years. His height was 1.7 meters - quite tall for that time.
The condition of the bones spoke of physiological stress - iron deficiency, anemia, starvation. There was a fracture on the right clavicle that had not fully healed. A large abscess had formed on a broken mandibular incisor, which had destroyed much of the surrounding bone.
Finally, near the left femur was a triangular arrowhead made of quartzite, a typical early seventeenth-century Indian weapon. This tip had apparently embedded itself in the young man's thigh and caused severe bleeding, which could have resulted in death.
Further evidence that this boy died shortly after arriving in Virginia was provided by isotopic analysis. Stable isotopes in his bones indicated a wheat-based diet - typical of the English. However, tiny plant particles recovered from the dental calculus show that corn from Virginia had appeared in the young man's diet shortly before his death. All of this suggests a recent arrival in the New World.
Archaeologists believe this grave belonged to one of the first victims of the Jamestown Expedition. Captain John Smith described the events of May 26, 1607: “On the previous day the Indians had attacked the fort...most of the council were wounded, a boy killed...and thirteen or fourteen more wounded...”. This happened just two weeks after the colonists landed.
The names of four boys who arrived in Virginia in May 1607 with the first group of colonists are known: Samuel Collier, Nathaniel Peacock, James Brumfield, and Richard Mattoon. After 1607, only Bramfield and Peacock are mentioned in the records. Additional evidence suggests that the boy killed in the attack was most likely Richard Mutton. There are records of Matton being baptized in London in 1593.
Even if the arrow had not wounded him, an infection of the jaw would likely have eventually led to the young man's death. The condition of the injury indicates that he broke a tooth before leaving England. The tooth could have been extracted, but no one bothered to do so. Although the broken tooth must have caused severe pain, no dental care was provided to Richard Mattoon.
A forensic anthropologist performed a facial reconstruction of Richard Matton's face.
More than 400 years ago, this Dutch woman fought bravely to defend her hometown from the Spanish.
When in late 2010 a group of Leiden students were excavating in preparation for the construction of a parking lot in the center of Alkmaar (Netherlands), they got a big surprise: they unexpectedly discovered a mass grave from the Eighty Years' War.
Of course, when the students started excavating, they guessed that they would be unearthing ancient graves. From 1448 to 1574, a monastery stood on the site, and a monastery is usually associated with a cemetery. However, no one expected, in addition to monastic remains, to find in the grave the skeletons of women and young men with numerous skull injuries. Obviously, the buried had died violent deaths. In the end, two mass graves were excavated. One contained the bones of 22 young men, and the other contained a woman, three elderly men, three young men of about 17 years of age, and a small child. Apparently these men had died in the siege of Alkmaar in 1573, during the Eighty Years' War.
The skeleton of a woman aged 26-35 has attracted particular attention. The lady is about 1.68 meters tall. Judging by the wear and tear on her spine and joints, the woman was accustomed to physical labor and clearly did not belong to a privileged class. Why did she end up in this grave? It is known that women took an active part in the defense of the city, helped in caring for the wounded, and also defended the city walls.
Archaeologists announced a contest for a name for the woman, and the name “Brecht van Alkmaar” eventually won.
The cause of Brecht's death is unclear. Did she starve to death or was she killed in battle? Unfortunately, skeletal analysis did not provide an answer.
The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch War of Independence, was a rebellion against King Philip II of Spain, and the siege of Alkmaar proved to be a turning point in the war. The siege was led by Don Fadrique of Toledo, son of the “Iron Duke” of Alva. The confrontation lasted from August 21 to October 8, 1573. In the end, the townspeople turned to the Prince of Orange for help. In response, he promised to open the floodgates of the dikes and flood the region if the need arose, which he did despite protests from peasants fearing for their crops. Some of his reports fell into the hands of Don Fadrique, and as the waters began to rise, the Spaniards fled. Alkmaar became the first city to overcome the siege of the Spanish army.
It was a hard battle. Boiling tar and hot water poured from the city wall, burning branches flew, and a hail of bullets and cannonballs rained down on the defenders. The townswomen participated in the battle on an equal footing with the men and became famous for their bravery. Legends even preserve the name of one of the defenders of Alkmaar - Triin Rembrandts. True, it is not clear whether she existed in reality. But the participation in the defense of the heroine of this post “Brecht van Alkmaar” is very likely.
Brecht found her face after 437 years. With the help of CT scans, a virtual model of the skull was obtained, from which the Archaeological Center Het Huis van Hilde made a sculptural reconstruction of the appearance.
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Equator AI
Hey friends!
As creators and content authors of the Equator AI channel, we understand that some of the AI-generated images in our videos show historical figures with makeup or long painted nails, which may not be historically accurate. We know our ancestors didn’t follow these modern trends, but we’re hopeful that AI will continue to improve and account for these details over time. We kindly ask for your understanding and patience as the technology evolves. Thank you so much for your continued support!
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 103
View 16 replies
Equator AI
This shaman woman was buried with an infant, who was not her child, 9,000 years ago.
We have already written about the famous burial of a Mesolithic woman in Bad Dürrenberg (Central Germany), but new details have emerged.
This ancient grave was discovered during sewage works in 1934. The burial struck the discoverers with a rich inventory. A female skeleton was sitting upright, squatting, and between her thighs lay the bones of a baby. Everything was covered with a layer of red ochre.
The grave contained jewellery made of deer, auroch and boar teeth, stone tools, flint microliths in a crane bone container, bone and horn objects, fragments of three turtle shells and river mollusk shells. The burial is still considered one of the richest Mesolithic graves in Germany.
After World War II, the find was forgotten for a long time, and remembered in the XXI century. In 2019, specialists conducted new excavations, and the skeleton of the woman was examined in detail. In autumn 2022, the book ‘The Mystery of the Shaman’ was published, entirely devoted to the monument in Bad Dürrenberg.
At the time of her death, the woman was 30-35 years old and 165 cm tall. No decay was found on her teeth, but the first incisors of the upper jaw were so erased that the tooth canals were exposed. The woman had probably been using her teeth very actively as tools. The result was an inflammation that affected the entire jaw. It's believed that this may have eventually led to the woman's death.
Judging from the abnormalities of the cervical vertebrae, the woman suffered from neck problems that made it impossible to turn and bend her head. The idea is that certain head positions clamped an artery, resulting in an impaired blood supply to the brain. This means that the woman could move her head to quickly render herself semi-conscious. A property valuable to someone who communicates with otherworldly forces! This, as well as the presence in the burial of two headdresses made of reindeer antlers, led archaeologists to assume that the woman was some kind of shaman.
The baby's skeleton is poorly preserved. At the time of death, the poor thing was not yet a year old. DNA analysis showed that the child was a boy, who was not a close relative of the woman. So why was the baby buried with her? It's a mystery.
Geneticists also found that the woman had blue eyes, dark hair and dark skin - a typical set-up for Mesolithic hunters in Western Europe.
Surprisingly, the burial appears to have been visited by humans for a very long time. Some items were found to have been placed in the grave 600 years after the woman's death.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 530
View 45 replies
Equator AI
This girl fled war and epidemic, but the plague caught up with her 400 years ago.
In 2002, in Ochla, a village near Zielona Góra, Poland, a landowner building a veranda came across the bones. A victim of a crime? A World War II soldier? The landowner called the police. However, instead of a Wehrmacht soldier's badge, the police found silver thalers. It became obvious that the find could be several centuries old, and archaeologists were invited to the site. After the excavations, the scientists transported the findings to the Archaeological Museum in Svidnica, where they can still be seen today.
A few years ago, experts conducted a detailed study of the skeleton from Ochle. It turned out that the bones belonged to a girl in her 20s, of short stature (153 cm). The unknown woman was given the name ‘Lyubushka’. But when did she die? This question was answered by coins: 11 silver thalers. The oldest was minted in 1557 and the youngest in 1629, and this coin showed almost no signs of wear. The coins came from different places and mints, e.g. three from Saxony, four from the Netherlands. There was even a bishop's thaler from Salzburg. At that time, money travelled with merchants and soldiers, knowing no borders. The 11 thalers were of great value. The girl was most likely a townswoman.
Researchers believe that ‘Lubushka’ died around 1630. There was the Thirty Years War, in the city was rampant hunger, robbery and disease. The chronicles also record a plague epidemic, which killed two-thirds of the inhabitants of Zielona Góra at that time. Many people, fleeing from the plague and hostile armies, fled from the town to Ochla. Perhaps ‘Lyubushka’ was among the refugees, as her grave was located at the crossroads where the route from Zelena Góra to Ochla was travelled.
Since the girl had her coins with her, it means that she was buried in a hurry, and the grave is rather deep - 1.35 metres, a standard burial in those times was about 70 cm deep. This suggests possible death by plague. That is why the body was not searched and buried deeper, scientists believe. True, no signs of disease were found on the bones, but the plague leaves traces if it drags on, and ‘Lyubushka’ probably died quickly.
Anthropologists found on the girl's teeth signs of years of starvation or diseases suffered in childhood. Apart from coins, only tiny traces of a leather pouch containing thalers were found along with the bones. There are greenish spots on the phalanges of the right hand, probably from a bronze or brass shirt clasp. Two small iron staples that were part of the buckle were also found.
Scientists decided to recreate the appearance of ‘Lyubushka’, for which they made a computer tomography of the skull. The virtual portrait was made by expert criminalist Dorota Lorkiewicz-Muszyńska. DNA analysis helped to establish the colour of eyes and hair. ‘Lubushka’ was provided with long straight hair - such simple hairstyles were common in her time.
In 2019, the exhibition ‘Lubushka Jane Doe, or Private History of the Times of War and Plague’ (Jane Doe is a conventional name often given to an unidentified woman in English-speaking countries) was dedicated to the 17th-century girl.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 386
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2700 years ago, this powerful prince often swung his sword, and his left arm had poor movement due to a badly healed fracture of the clavicle.
The Eichlechen barrow field, located in the Frankfurt City Forest (Germany), began to be explored back in the 18th century. During salvage excavations during the construction of a motorway in 1966, archaeologists managed to unearth a large mound located in the middle of a group of more than 50 smaller mounds. The central mound was originally 3.5 metres high, 36 metres in diameter and topped by a stone stele.
The mound contained the burial of a so-called ‘Celtic prince’, dated to 700 BC. In the tomb, archaeologists found many bronze and iron objects, as well as ceramics. Finds include a bronze sword, two gilded knives, chariot parts, toiletries, harness, a richly decorated collar, bronze and earthenware, and personal hygiene items including tweezers and ear cleaning spoons.
The rich burial from Frankfurt has become a crucial discovery for European Iron Age researchers. Recently, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the excavations, archaeologists organised an interdisciplinary study of the burial mound complex using the latest scientific methods, including a detailed analysis of the skeleton of the ‘prince’.
The age of the man, based on the condition of his teeth and the overgrowth of his skull sutures, was about 50 years old. He was tall (175 cm), physically developed, in good health and apparently had a good diet. His teeth were in decent condition, with decay only on one molar.
There was a healed fracture on the left clavicle. As a result of this, the left arm had to move poorly. Because of this, as well as the frequent use of a bronze sword, the muscles of the right arm are hypertrophied. In addition, degenerative changes were found in the lumbar spine. The osteochondrosis must have caused pain and somewhat restricted the man's movements.
In the course of the study, forensic anthropologist Constanza Niss created a reconstruction of the ‘prince's’ face. This required reconstructing the man's deformed and partially broken skull. The missing parts of the skull were restored by mirroring the existing fragments.
According to genetic analysis, the man had blue eyes and blond hair.
The reconstruction was fitted with a hairstyle known from the image of a warrior found on a pre-Roman Iron Age monument in Austria (5th century BC).
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 515
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These two are an artilleryman and a bosun who served on an English ship that sank almost 500 years ago. Both have very bad teeth; both suffered from arthritis and poor nutrition.
The warship Mary Rose was the flagship of the English navy under Henry VIII Tudor. The ship fought in several wars, served for 33 years, and sank on 19 July 1545 during an attack on French galleys in the Solent, a strait north of the Isle of Wight. The causes of the ship's wreck are not entirely clear. According to one version, the old ship lost stability, during a sharp turn in a strong gust of wind scooped up water with open gun ports and went to the bottom.
Attempts to raise the ship were made immediately after the shipwreck, but without success.
‘The Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1836. The ship was examined by divers diving in newly invented rubber suits and metal helmets. They were able to bring some items to the surface, including antique guns. Nineteenth-century explorers tried to penetrate the ship, which was covered with a thick layer of shells and silt, using gunpowder charges. Fortunately, the Mary Rose escaped total destruction as a result of such barbaric survey methods.
The Mary Rose wreck site was found again in 1971. A specially established Mary Rose Foundation organised an operation to raise the ship, which proved to be one of the most complex and expensive marine salvage projects in history. The ship had to be carefully cleared of silt before it could be lifted. More than 500 divers and 70 laboratory personnel were involved in the project. The work was carried out from 1979 to 1982, totalling more than 22,000 hours of diving time. The Mary Rose wreck project proved that underwater excavations could achieve a level of accuracy comparable to conventional, land-based archaeology.
The surviving part of the ship and the thousands of artefacts found on it are of immense value as a kind of time capsule.
More than 26,000 artefacts were brought to the surface, including clothing, musical instruments, books, games, navigational devices, personal hygiene items, 8 chests with carpentry tools, 9 barrels with meat residues, a huge number of weapons, and the chest of a barber-surgeon. The remains of animals - a dog, a rat and a frog - were also discovered. The dog, an English Toy Terrier, was apparently used as a rat catcher. Based on DNA, it was a male.
Archaeologists discovered the skeletons of 90 people - that's about half of the crew. Analysis of the bones showed that many of the sailors suffered from malnutrition. Anthropologists recorded signs of rickets and scurvy. In addition, some crew members developed arthritis from constant heavy lifting, and many had broken bones.
Anthropologists made a number of facial reconstructions of the crew members. The two in the photo are the gunner and the bosun. The reconstructions were created for an exhibition on the Mary Rose at Whitgift School in South Croydon.
The bosun was in his early 40s and 163cm tall. Like many other crew members, he had very bad teeth with decay, tartar and abscesses. In his youth, the bosun had been engaged in physical labour. A silver whistle, which was used to control sailors on deck, was found on the skeleton.
Although the gunner is quite young (20-30 years old), his teeth are quite bad: 11 were missing at the time of his death and most of the remaining ones were badly decayed. His spine was also in poor condition, probably as a result of years of carrying guns, heavy nukes and powder charges.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 291
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This woman lived near the famous settlement of Arkaim (Chelyabinsk region) in the Late Bronze Age.
Her skeleton was discovered in the largest burial mound of the Kizilskoye I burial ground, on the bank of the Ural River, not far from the remains of a fortified settlement of the Sintashti culture. The Kizilskoye settlement is the westernmost of those belonging to the so-called ‘Country of Cities’.
Excavations of the monument have been carried out since the 1960s. An aerial survey of the burial ground was carried out, which revealed about 30 burial mounds located compactly along the shoreline in an area of 200 metres.
The largest barrow (Barrow No. 2) is 22 metres in diameter and 0.4 metres high. In this area the local inhabitants were actively grazing cattle, the mounds were deteriorating and were about to disappear from the surface of the earth, so in 2008 archaeologists began to investigate the burials. Four structures in the northern part of the burial mound were excavated.
The largest mound was a rather complex construction: the oval burial ground was surrounded by a ditch 3.5 metres wide and about 1.5 metres deep. In front of the ditch were the remains of a wall made of mud-brick bricks. A second earthen wall, about 6 metres in diameter, surrounded the burial chamber, which in turn was carefully enclosed with large clay blocks. Burials were carried out in deep burial chambers.
The dead in barrow 2 were lying on their right side. The dead were buried in a layer of clay, sometimes mixed with red ochre. The burial inventory consisted of ceramic vessels and metal items.
The main pit of barrow 2 contained the bones of a woman aged 24-25. In addition, the remains of a man and a teenager aged 13-15 were found in the barrow.
The skulls of the man and woman are elongated, the faces are broad, and the forehead is sloping. According to these features, the people of the Kizil burial mound are close to the Eastern European representatives of the Yamnaya culture. The specificity of the Kizil people is a small protrusion of the nasal bones.
Sculptural reconstruction of the face of a woman from barrow 2 was made by anthropologist Alexei Nechvaloda. A virtual portrait based on this sculpture was made by Philip Edwin, who provided the woman with sandy-blond hair and grey eyes, although he pointed out that without genetic data it is ‘guesswork’.
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 380
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Meet the “ Lady of the Lilies”. This is a female mummy from Egypt that Count Leonetto Ottolenghi bought back in the 19th century along with the sarcophagus and other objects for the Archaeological Museum of Aquileia (Italy) he founded. The magnificent sarcophagus was the last home of a wealthy woman who probably lived in Thebes or near the capital of the New Kingdom between the XXI (1070-945 BC) and XXII dynasties (945-715 BC).
The mummy was in unfavorable conditions and poorly preserved, but a CT scan taken a few years ago revealed much about the deceased.
" Lady of the Lilies" died relatively young, aged 30-35 years. She was about 150 centimeters tall. The woman's limbs and spine contain no lifetime damage, but she had lost almost all of her upper teeth during her lifetime, probably as a result of some accident. Because of this, the Egyptian woman's face was somewhat asymmetrical.
Scholars do not know her name or titles. The inscriptions on the sarcophagus leave the identity and role of the deceased in shadow. However, the exquisite headdress and the precious amulets depicted on the sarcophagus speak of her status. The face of the deceased is decorated with a wig with ribbons and large flowers: white and blue lilies (hence the nickname given to the mummy).
The sculptural portrait of the “Lady of the Lilies” was made by expert forensic artist Walter Capussotto under the supervision of Marinella La Porta. The reconstruction was presented at the exhibition “Egypt. Gods, Pharaohs, Men” in Jesolo in 2017.
1 month ago | [YT] | 437
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This man died in the wreck of one of the ships of the Lapérouse expedition in 1788.
In 1785, King Louis XVI appointed Jean-François de Lapérouse to lead the French circumnavigation of the globe. The mission, which was to rival the exploits of Captain Cook, was both practical and scientific. On the frigates Bussol and Astrolabe, 225 sailors, officers and scientists set sail, equipped with the best scientific instruments, provisions and goods for trade. They crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn, stopped at Easter Island and Hawaii, then continued on to Alaska; on their return south they passed Kamchatka, the coast of China and the Philippines. In January 1788, the expedition landed in Botany Bay, Australia. Laperouse's crew resumed their voyage on March 10, 1788, leaving the last set of letters to the British navy. They were expected to return to France in the summer of 1788, but the expedition disappeared without a trace. It is said that Louis XVI, on his way to the guillotine in 1793, asked his executioners, “Is there any news of Lapérouse?”
In 1826, Irish sea captain Peter Dillon saw European objects at Tikopia in the Solomon Islands that locals told him came from the nearby island of Vanikoro. At the head of an exploring vessel, Dillon traveled to Vanikoro in 1827. He was able to determine that both of Laperouse's ships had been wrecked on coral reefs during a storm, that the crew members had built a boat from the wreckage and sailed away in it, and that some survivors remained on the island. One of the shipwrecks was discovered just four kilometers southwest of the island. The artifacts found, including a ship's bell and a silver sword hilt, were taken to Paris, where they were identified as belonging to the expedition.
In 1962, New Zealand diver Rhys Discombe found a second ship: it lay on a reef about a kilometer east of the first wreck. Systematic research began in 1981 and recovered many important items from the wreck. Traces of the camp were finally discovered on an island in the Payou area, near the Laurentian Delta, in 1999: among other things, archaeologists found musket bullets, a candlestick and part of a military compass.
However, the most stunning discovery was made by underwater archaeologists who surveyed the wreck: in 2003, at a depth of 15 meters, under a thick layer of sediment, they found a skeleton. The skeleton is perfectly preserved, which is highly atypical for bodies found in seawater.
Anthropological studies indicate a male European, 30 to 34 years old, 1.65 to 1.70 meters tall, with poorly developed musculature. The man's left humerus was deformed, indicating an old compound fracture. The right femur was shorter than the left, although this did not affect walking. The dentition was incomplete (teeth lost after death), but the teeth were surprisingly healthy. The canines showed severe wear and tear.
Death occurred probably 201±29 years ago, which is quite compatible with the disappearance of two ships of the Lapérouse expedition. But it is definitely not Lapérouse - he was 47 at the time of the disappearance of the Lapérouse expedition. The researchers assumed that the skeleton belonged to an officer of the Royal Navy or a scientist. This was confirmed by the fact that the skeleton was found at the stern of the ship, where the commanders were usually placed.
Reconstruction of the man's face on the skull was performed by the famous specialist Elizabeth Daines.
At first it was believed that the deceased was an artist and botanist Duchet de Vancy, who was on board the “Astrolabe”, but this idea was abandoned in 2005, when the wreckage of the ship was identified as the “Bussol”. Currently, there are two versions. According to one, the deceased is Jean-André Monge, a chaplain and naturalist who was 36 years old. This idea is supported by the fact that a number of ecclesiastical objects were found near the skeleton. Another possible candidate is the astronomer Joseph Lepot d'Ajele. The facial reconstruction is similar to his surviving portrait.
Genetic testing has not yet been successful.
1 month ago | [YT] | 296
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In 1607, this young man, one of the first English settlers in the New World, was killed by the Indians. Before his death, he was starving and suffering greatly from a bad tooth.
The English landed in North America on May 14, 1607. They named the new fort Jamestown in honor of King James I. The colonists faced significant hardships - disease, starvation, and Indian attacks.
In August 2005, during an excavation, archaeologists discovered a skeleton near the west wall of the fort. The absence of any European artifacts in the grave fill and other signs indicated that the burial occurred in the first weeks or months of settlement at Jamestown.
The grave was shallow and too short, causing the skull to rest against its eastern wall. Apparently, those who buried this man were in a great hurry. There was no coffin, but judging from the position of the legs, the body was wrapped in a shroud, which is typical of the early 17th century.
The skeleton belonged to a young man, probably a teenager. Judging by the development of long bones and teeth, the age of the deceased was about 15 years. His height was 1.7 meters - quite tall for that time.
The condition of the bones spoke of physiological stress - iron deficiency, anemia, starvation. There was a fracture on the right clavicle that had not fully healed. A large abscess had formed on a broken mandibular incisor, which had destroyed much of the surrounding bone.
Finally, near the left femur was a triangular arrowhead made of quartzite, a typical early seventeenth-century Indian weapon. This tip had apparently embedded itself in the young man's thigh and caused severe bleeding, which could have resulted in death.
Further evidence that this boy died shortly after arriving in Virginia was provided by isotopic analysis. Stable isotopes in his bones indicated a wheat-based diet - typical of the English. However, tiny plant particles recovered from the dental calculus show that corn from Virginia had appeared in the young man's diet shortly before his death. All of this suggests a recent arrival in the New World.
Archaeologists believe this grave belonged to one of the first victims of the Jamestown Expedition. Captain John Smith described the events of May 26, 1607: “On the previous day the Indians had attacked the fort...most of the council were wounded, a boy killed...and thirteen or fourteen more wounded...”. This happened just two weeks after the colonists landed.
The names of four boys who arrived in Virginia in May 1607 with the first group of colonists are known: Samuel Collier, Nathaniel Peacock, James Brumfield, and Richard Mattoon. After 1607, only Bramfield and Peacock are mentioned in the records. Additional evidence suggests that the boy killed in the attack was most likely Richard Mutton. There are records of Matton being baptized in London in 1593.
Even if the arrow had not wounded him, an infection of the jaw would likely have eventually led to the young man's death. The condition of the injury indicates that he broke a tooth before leaving England. The tooth could have been extracted, but no one bothered to do so. Although the broken tooth must have caused severe pain, no dental care was provided to Richard Mattoon.
A forensic anthropologist performed a facial reconstruction of Richard Matton's face.
1 month ago | [YT] | 454
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More than 400 years ago, this Dutch woman fought bravely to defend her hometown from the Spanish.
When in late 2010 a group of Leiden students were excavating in preparation for the construction of a parking lot in the center of Alkmaar (Netherlands), they got a big surprise: they unexpectedly discovered a mass grave from the Eighty Years' War.
Of course, when the students started excavating, they guessed that they would be unearthing ancient graves. From 1448 to 1574, a monastery stood on the site, and a monastery is usually associated with a cemetery. However, no one expected, in addition to monastic remains, to find in the grave the skeletons of women and young men with numerous skull injuries. Obviously, the buried had died violent deaths.
In the end, two mass graves were excavated. One contained the bones of 22 young men, and the other contained a woman, three elderly men, three young men of about 17 years of age, and a small child. Apparently these men had died in the siege of Alkmaar in 1573, during the Eighty Years' War.
The skeleton of a woman aged 26-35 has attracted particular attention. The lady is about 1.68 meters tall. Judging by the wear and tear on her spine and joints, the woman was accustomed to physical labor and clearly did not belong to a privileged class. Why did she end up in this grave? It is known that women took an active part in the defense of the city, helped in caring for the wounded, and also defended the city walls.
Archaeologists announced a contest for a name for the woman, and the name “Brecht van Alkmaar” eventually won.
The cause of Brecht's death is unclear. Did she starve to death or was she killed in battle? Unfortunately, skeletal analysis did not provide an answer.
The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch War of Independence, was a rebellion against King Philip II of Spain, and the siege of Alkmaar proved to be a turning point in the war. The siege was led by Don Fadrique of Toledo, son of the “Iron Duke” of Alva. The confrontation lasted from August 21 to October 8, 1573. In the end, the townspeople turned to the Prince of Orange for help. In response, he promised to open the floodgates of the dikes and flood the region if the need arose, which he did despite protests from peasants fearing for their crops. Some of his reports fell into the hands of Don Fadrique, and as the waters began to rise, the Spaniards fled. Alkmaar became the first city to overcome the siege of the Spanish army.
It was a hard battle. Boiling tar and hot water poured from the city wall, burning branches flew, and a hail of bullets and cannonballs rained down on the defenders. The townswomen participated in the battle on an equal footing with the men and became famous for their bravery. Legends even preserve the name of one of the defenders of Alkmaar - Triin Rembrandts. True, it is not clear whether she existed in reality. But the participation in the defense of the heroine of this post “Brecht van Alkmaar” is very likely.
Brecht found her face after 437 years. With the help of CT scans, a virtual model of the skull was obtained, from which the Archaeological Center Het Huis van Hilde made a sculptural reconstruction of the appearance.
1 month ago | [YT] | 232
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