St. Casciano bronzes among finalists for archaeology's top international prize

The bronzes of San Casciano dei Bagni among the five archaeological discoveries of 2022 finalists for the ninth edition of theInternational Archaeological Discovery Award "Khaled al-Asaad," an award named after the archaeologist from Palmyra who paid with his life for the defense of cultural heritage. It is the only award worldwide dedicated to the world ofarchaeology and archaeologists.

The Mediterranean Archaeological Tourism Exchange and Archeo intended to pay tribute to archaeological discoveries through an annual Prize awarded in collaboration with the Exchange’s international media partner publications: Antike Welt (Germany), arCHaeo (Switzerland), Archäologie in Deutschland (Germany), Archéologia (France), Current Archaeology (UK), and Dossiers d’Archéologie (France).

Fellowship Director Ugo Picarelli and Archeo Director Andreas Steiner shared this journey in common, aware that “past civilizations and cultures and their relations with their surroundings assume today more and more importance linked to the rediscovery of identities, in a global society that increasingly disperses its values.” The Prize is thus characterized by popularizing an exchange of experiences, represented by international discoveries, also as a good practice of intercultural dialogue and cooperation among peoples.

The Prize, awarded to the first-ranked archaeological discovery, will be selected from the five finalists reported by the editors of each journal and will be presented on Friday, November 3, during the XXV BMTA scheduled in Paestum from November 2 to 5, 2023, in the presence of Fayrouz and Waleed Asaad, archaeologists and sons of Khaled.

In addition, a Special Award will be given to the discovery, among the five nominees, that has received the most support from the general public during the period June 5-October 5 on the Exchange’s Facebook page(www.facebook.com/borsamediterraneaturismoarcheologico).

Here are the five finalist discoveries:

Egypt: in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara in Giza, about 30 km south of Cairo, the pyramid of Queen Neith with 300 coffins and 100 mummies.

For years archaeologists have been excavating at Saqqara, a sandy plateau used to build grandiose burial monuments, now considered one of Giza’s major archaeological sites. The team had initially focused its efforts on the nearby pyramid of Teti, the first king of Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty. “Teti was worshiped as a god in the New Kingdom period and so people wanted to be buried near him,” Zahi Hawass explained. “However, most of the previously known burials in Saqqara were from the Old Kingdom or Late Period.” Twenty-two interconnected shafts, ranging from 9 to 18 meters, were found, including a huge limestone sarcophagus and 300 coffins from the New Kingdom period, also known as the Egyptian Empire, which lasted from the 6th century BCE to the 11th century BCE. The coffins have individual faces, each unique, distinguishing between men and women, and are decorated with scenes from the ancient Egyptian funerary text Book of the Dead. Each coffin also bears the name of the deceased and often shows the Four Sons of Horus, who protected the deceased’s organs. Inside the coffins, archaeologists have found the bodies of well-preserved mummies, at least 100 identified. In addition, inside the coffins and grave pits, they also found artifacts such as toys, small figurines known as shabtis and statues of the god Ptah-Sokar, representing the cycle of birth, death and resurrection. This extraordinary find proves that the mummification technique reached its peak in the New Kingdom, as some tombs were protected by a double cover and, upon uncovering the sarcophagus, a mummy appeared with its head covered by a glittering solid gold mask.The most historically significant discovery, however, is the discovery of a pyramid built in honor of a new ruler, hitherto unknown in the pantheon of Egyptian pharaohs. This is Queen Neith, never mentioned in any historical document, which rewrites, once again, the History of Ancient Egypt more precisely.

Guatemala: traces of the oldest Mayan calendar.

On the fragment of an ancient mural found at the archaeological site of San Bartolo, inscriptions have been identified that date back 150 years before the oldest known Mayan calendar finds to date. San Bartolo is a pre-Columbian site of the Maya civilization known for wall paintings influenced by the Olmec tradition and symbols of a primitive type of Maya writing, located in the Department of Petén northeast of Tikal, the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization, whose National Park is a UNESCO site.
Fragment 6368, found at the Ixbalamque structure and dated to 300-200 B.C., using the radiocarbon technique, depicts the image of the Maya god of maize, from the Late Preclassic period. Two archaeologists have published a study of 11 fragments of ancient Maya wall paintings discovered in the ruins of the ancient Las Pinturas pyramid. Nearly 300 years before Christ, this region was in the midst of cultural and scientific development: there was once a palace and large pyramids here, and the part of the mural bearing the inscription “deer 7” was probably made during a period when the palace, in addition to rituals, was also used for astronomical observation. Unlike the Mayan solar calendar, which ended in 2012, this sacred calendar had a 260-day year and a more prophetic purpose. It is a calendar related to time but not in a linear sense. “It’s more related to the passage of time and the beliefs attached to each specific day,” explains Heather Hurst, an archaeologist on the team that made the discovery. This ritual calendar consists of numbers, from 1 to 13, associated with a series of various symbols, among which we know, for example, darkness, water, dog and deer; and the numbers coincide with the dates. There are 20 symbols and 13 dates that, considering all possible combinations of them, result in a 260-day cycle. The Mayan tribes studied with great dedication the position of Venus, the Sun and all celestial bodies, being interested in the passage of time and its cyclical nature. Modern indigenous Maya people today use this calendar for its prescient qualities, for example, to predict the birth of children, or to determine the right time for harvesting.

Iraq: A Bronze Age city reappears from the Tigris River in the Mosul reservoir.

For decades submerged after a prolonged drought, a team of Kurdish and German archaeologists from the University of Freiburg has been able to excavate a 3,400-year-old city. The city may be ancient Zachiku, an important center of the Mitanni empire, in power between 1550 and 1350 B.C., located near the archaeological site of Kemune. The excavation began in early 2022, before the archaeological site disappeared back into the lake. Archaeologists were able to reconstruct much of the city’s layout and bring to light some large, hitherto unknown buildings: including a massive fortification, a multi-story warehouse, and a workshop complex. Remarkably, the mud-brick buildings were still so well preserved, despite being under water for more than 40 years. The good state of preservation was probably caused by a strong earthquake around 1350 B.C., thanks to the collapse of the upper part of the walls that had buried and preserved the buildings. In addition, five pottery vessels were discovered with an archive of more than 100 cuneiform tablets, probably created shortly after the earthquake event, some of them still in clay containers. These are possibly letters according to archaeologist Peter Pfälzner of the University of Tübingen, one of the project leaders. The cuneiform tablets could provide new information about the end of the sunken city and the beginning of Assyrian rule in the region. After the excavation was completed, the scientists took some protective measures: they covered the exposed buildings with plastic sheeting and covered them with gravel, hoping to protect the clay walls from further water damage.

Italy: in Tuscany in the province of Siena, 24 bronze statues from Etruscan and Roman times that had been hidden for millennia resurface from the mud in San Casciano dei Bagni.

Dating from between the second century B.C. and the first century A.D., they have been protected for 2,300 years by the mud and boiling water of the votive sanctuary’s sacred pools along with coins, votive offerings and Latin and Etruscan inscriptions. The sanctuary, with its seething pools, sloping terraces, fountains, and altars, existed from at least the third century B.C. and remained active until the fifth century A.D., when, in Christian times, it was closed but not destroyed. The pools were sealed with heavy stone columns and the deities dutifully entrusted to the water, so removed that cover is in fact “the largest repository of statues in ancient Italy.” The statues, five of them nearly a meter high, are perfectly intact and were most likely made by local artisans: effigies of Hygieia and Apollo, as well as a bronze, while the exceptional state of preservation of the statues within the hot spring water has preserved wonderful inscriptions in Etruscan and Latin engraved before they were made. Arranged in part on the branches of a huge tree trunk fixed to the bottom of the pool, in many cases covered with inscriptions, the statues as well as the countless votive offerings, come from the great families of the territory of inland Etruria (from the Velimna of Perugia to the Marcni known in the Sienese countryside) and beyond, exponents of the elites of the Etruscan and later Roman world, landowners, local squires, the wealthy classes of Rome and even emperors. Here, surprisingly, the language of the Etruscans seems to survive much longer than the canonical dates in history.
The discovery represents a model of collaboration between the municipality (in 2019 it began funding the excavation of the Bagno Grande, after buying the private land and applying for the concession, entrusting the operational direction to Emanuele Mariotti), the Ministry of Culture (ABAP General Directorate in collaboration with the Superintendence for the provinces of Siena, Grosseto and Arezzo), Scientific Direction of the excavation (Jacobo Tabolli Researcher at the University for Foreigners of Siena), local volunteers (Eutyche Avidiena Archaeological Association), with the collaboration of specialists from all disciplines: from architects to geologists, archaeobotanists to epigraphy and numismatics experts from multiple universities around the world.

Turkey: in Midyat, Mardin province, a large underground city dating back 2,000 years.

In the southeastern Anatolia region of the country, a complex dating between the second and third centuries A.D. has been discovered. “Midyat has been in continuous use for 1,900 years, originally designed as a hiding place or escape zone: in fact, Christianity was not an official religion in the second century,” said Gani Tarkan, director of the Mardin Museum and head of the excavations. Along the tunnel of as many as 100 meters in different places, 49 rooms were found, some used as churches and synagogues. There are storehouses, also, several water wells, and some decorations graced the walls in different areas. Excavations have only reached 3 percent of the city, therefore, there may still be a lot high to be discovered, as there is no other underground city that occupies such a large area. Underground cities are places of great evocative power: tunnels and galleries, created for the purpose of traversing the city more conveniently, unfold below the surface, concealing ancient stories of undoubted fascination.

As explained by the mayor, Veysi Sahin, the excavations began in a cave found during a series of cleaning and preservation works on the streets and historic mansions that had begun two years earlier. As the excavation deepened, shrines, water wells, storerooms and several tunnels were found. The underground city is known as Matiate, meaning precisely “City of Caves.” The name was already mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions from the 9th century BC.

St. Casciano bronzes among finalists for archaeology's top international prize

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