Aparecen nuevos restos arqueológicos en la Catedral de Tarazona

Este proyecto se está llevando a cabo en el marco del convenio de colaboración suscrito hasta el año 2014, por importe de 1.812.000 euros

Los trabajos que se están desarrollando en la Catedral de Tarazona han permitido descubrir nuevos restos arqueológicos, como un nuevo mosaico romano en el templo. El hallazgo es resultado del desarrollo de las labores de restauración del pórtico mayor, protección de restos arqueológicos y adecuación de la plaza de la Seo.

Este proyecto se está llevando a cabo en el marco del convenio de colaboración suscrito hasta el año 2014, por importe de 1.812.000 euros, entre el Gobierno de Aragón, la Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza, el Ayuntamiento de Tarazona, el Obispado y la Fundación Tarazona Monumental, dirigidos a la restauración del pórtico mayor, protección de los restos arqueológicos del siglo IV y adecuación del entorno de la plaza de la Seo.

Estos trabajos previos, dirigidos por los arquitectos Fernando y José Ignacio Aguerri Martínez, tienen entre otros objetivos delimitar los restos arqueológicos aparecidos en el año 2008, algo que está siendo posible gracias al desmontaje de las escaleras y parterres de la plaza de la Seo.

Los hallazgos conocidos hasta el momento se trataban de restos tardo romanos del siglo IV después de Cristo, correspondientes a un edificio de grandes proporciones y carácter representativo que conserva gran parte de sus pavimentos mosaicos, explica la Fundación Tarazona Monumental en una nota de prensa.

Los sondeos y catas arqueológicas iniciadas el pasado mes de marzo por el arqueólogo José Francisco Casabona han sacado a la luz un nuevo hallazgo. Se trata de los restos de un mosaico de tipo policromo decorado con motivos geométricos de tipo circular, que se correspondería con un espacio de grandes dimensiones y con una evidente relación formal con el aparecido en 2008, de carácter monumental y abierto hacia la ciudad.

Asociados al mosaico, se han recuperado fragmentos de cerámica romana y materiales de construcción, y también se han recuperado restos materiales de otros períodos, relacionados con la historia de la catedral y de la ciudad de Tarazona.

En esta primera fase de investigación "todavía no se puede determinar la importancia y envergadura del hallazgo arqueológico, pero se espera que a lo largo de esta actuación sigan apareciendo nuevas evidencias que permitan determinar ante qué edificio nos encontramos", indica la fundación.

El plan director de la Catedral contempla la conservación de los restos y en la medida de lo posible su musealización, algo que no impide la ejecución material de la obras de urbanización de la plaza. 

http://www.heraldo.es/noticias/aragon/zaragoza_provincia/2013/04/12/aparecen_nuevos_restos_arqueologicos_catedral_tarazona_230142_1101025.html

Una resaca de dos mil años

Hallada en Barcelona una cabeza romana de mármol de Sileno, acompañante del dios del vino



Jacinto Antón Barcelona

Para resaca la de este Sileno: lleva pasándola unos 2.000 años. Una cabecita de mármol del personaje, tradicional acompañante del dios romano del vino, Baco, y permanentemente embriagado, ha sido hallada en las excavaciones de la villa romana del Pont del Treball Digne, en la Sagrera de Barcelona. El descubrimiento se produjo, muy pertinentemente, en una zona anexa al área donde se han excavado cinco prensas de vino.

La escultura, datada provisionalmente en el siglo II, muestra a un hombre cercano a la vejez, de nariz chata, calvo, con barba y expresión pícara de consumado beodo. Un tipo poco recomendable, vamos. Son claramente las características del mitológico Sileno, hijo de Pan, que según los relatos había criado y educado a Baco (el Dionisio griego) y fue su fiel compañero en los viajes —y francachelas— de este, rodeados de otras gentes tan edificantes como los sátiros o las bacantes. Sileno dio su nombre a toda una especie de seres a su imagen y semejanza, los silenos, a veces difíciles de distinguir de sátiros y faunos. Puede que se trate de uno de estos hijos putativos, toda una tropa.

La pieza viene a añadirse al descubrimiento en julio pasado de otra escultura de mármol, una cabeza precisamente de Baco-Dionisio. Aunque son de escalas diferentes (la de Sileno, a diferencia de la de Baco, más pequeña que el natural), los estudiosos creen que podrían haber formado parte de un mismo conjunto escultórico. La cabecita, aún sucia aunque una pequeña fractura en su base permite discernir el puro blanco marmóreo que yace bajo la pátina de tierra y tiempo, resulta encantadora y llena de viveza y picardía. Parece estar guiñando un ojo y tiene un aire de Bukowski. Su figura se complementaría con un barrigón y pecho y miembros vellosos. Es posible que fuera montado en un asno —en su (permanente) estado (etílico) le era difícil caminar— y sostenido a los lados por dos sátiros, según la iconografía tradicional. Probablemente cargaba su inseparable odre de vino y los atributos del cortejo báquico como el tirso y la guirnalda de hiedra.

El concejal de Cultura de Barcelona Jaume Ciurana hizo ayer los honores en la presentación de este poco recomendable viejo ciudadano. Recalcó que el hallazgo reafirma la importancia para nuestra comprensión de la antigua Barcino de la villa romana de la Sagrera, cuya investigación, pese a estar el yacimiento “tan trinchado” por las construcciones, está deparando muchas felices sorpresas. El responsable municipal de intervenciones arqueológicas, Josep Pujades, detalló las circunstancias del hallazgo, en una zona de vertedero junto al edificio que contenía las presas de vino. No se descarta que puedan aparecer más piezas.

La arqueóloga de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) Isabel Rodà, indicó que la de la Sagrera era una villa romana rica y “es lógico encontrar restos escultóricos”. Calificó el nuevo hallazgo de “precioso”, y avanzó que el mármol, “muy fino”, podría proceder de las islas griegas. Ciertamente no se trata de una obra maestra, tipo el sátiro del museo capitolino o el fauno Borghese. “Estas piezas como las de la Sagrera eran obras de repertorio, de calidad, pero no obras de artista”. Rodà la comparó, salvando las grandes distancias, con “los enanitos de jardín actuales”. La datación aún no se ha precisado pero la especialista avanzó que la pieza podría ser de época de Adriano, a principios del siglo II.

Señaló que es “muy tentador” poner en relación las dos cabezas encontradas. “Baco y su séquito es un tema muy habitual en la decoración de las villas romanas”. Recordó que la zona era famosa en la antigüedad por sus vinos, que aunque no eran un falerno y hoy nos parecerían muy discutibles —solían picarse en el transporte por mar y no había forma de tomarlos sin añadirles especies o rebajarlos con agua—, se consumían en todo el mundo romano. La cabeza de Sileno irá al laboratorio municipal de Zona Franca para su limpieza y estudio y su destino final no está decidido aún.
http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2013/04/18/catalunya/1366290421_750197.html

Burrup Peninsula rock art among world's oldest

By:Jude Dinely | April-18-2013

 

 

 Study confirms vast collection of Aboriginal engravings in the Pilbara may be tens of thousands of years old

 

RESEARCH INTO THE rate of erosion of Pilbara rocks has put an upper limit on the possible age of up to a million ancient Aboriginal engravings in the Burrup Peninsula of Western Australia.
The peninsula and surrounding Dampier Archipelago have the highest concentration of rock art in the world. The carvings, called petroglyphs, include depictions of human-like figures, human faces and animals that no longer inhabited the region, including the Tasmanian tiger.
Archaeologists haven't been able to date engravings directly, but have previously estimated some of them to be up to 30,000 years old based on the style of the art and weathering patterns. One group of petroglyphs showing land-based animals, are thought to date from a time during the last ice age, when sea levels were higher and the area was far inland.

Low rates of erosion

The new study, led by Professor Brad Pillans, a geologist at the Australian National University, shows that rocks here have some of the lowest recorded rates of erosion in the world.
"The combination of hard rock and low rainfall means low erosion, so we have the potential for preserving rock art for much longer periods of time than in many other places," he told Australian Geographic.
The study published last week in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews shows that the deepest engravings could theoretically survive on these rock surfaces for up to 60,000 years, although the researchers do not claim they are this old.

Cosmic radiation used to date rocks

Brad and his co-author Professor L. Keith Fifield came to that conclusion by measuring levels of Berylllium 10. This is a radioactive isotope that accumulates in the surfaces of rocks because of radiation from space and indicates how long they have been exposed to the elements.
These findings support the idea that some of the rock art predates the last ice age, which occurred around 22,000 years ago, says Dr Ken Mulvaney, an archaeologist with Rio Tinto who produced the most recent age estimates based on the style of the art and weathering patterns.
The erosion "is such a slow process that the petroglyphs could remain visible for 60,000 years," says Ken, who adds that neither he nor Brad think the rock art actually is that old. Based on current evidence people only arrived in this part of Australia sometime between 35,000 and 42,000 years ago, he says.

Wonder of Aboriginal Australian heritage

Commenting on the findings, Professor Paul Tacon, a rock art specialist at Griffith University on the Gold Coast in Queensland, said the finding was an interesting one, but agrees that it doesn't bring researchers any closer to working out an age for the Burrup rock art.
"It opens up the possibility that some of this rock art is tens of thousands of years of age. But a lot of other different forms of research need to be done to see how old some of the oldest art is," he says.
Brad adds that the petroglyphs are a wonder of Aboriginal Australian heritage.
"When I first visited the Burrup Peninsula, I was absolutely amazed by the sheer number and variety of Aboriginal rock art engravings," he says. "It's estimated that there are up to one million images there, many of which are spectacular w

orks of art. Given the extraordinary amount and diversity of the rock art and its potential antiquity, I rather hope the area will soon be nominated for World Heritage listing."

 http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/burrup-peninsula-rock-art-among-oldest-in-world.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter


 

Temple of Jupiter And Caesar’s Last House Unearthed On The Palatine Hill

Excavations at the Palatine Hill in Rome have unearthed the first Temple of Jupiter Stator, or Jupiter the Stayer and the remains of a prestigious dwelling near the sacred area in front of the Porta Mugonia, dating to the second and first century BC. Experts suggest it may have been House of Caesar

Romulus supposedly built the temple after a battle at the Roman Forum against the Sabines during which the Romans had to retreat uphill on the Via Sacra.
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2013/temple-of-jupiter-and-caesars-last-house-unearthed-on-the-palatine-hill

Roman-Era 'Cosmetics' May Have Treated Eye Chlamydia

Roman-era toiletry sets consisting of tweezers, scrapers and other artifacts have long been interpreted as beauty aids. But it's possible the tools had a more gruesome use: to treat a type of Chlamydia that infects the eye.
The tools are found across Great Britain and date back to around A.D. 43 to A.D. 410, a time when much of the island was under Roman control. They do bear resemblance to modern-day cosmetic kits, but they're also similar to tools used in folk treatments of trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness around the world today, said Wendy Morrison, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Oxford.
"Trachoma is a disease which has plagued humans for millennia,The 9 Most Bizarre Medical Conditions

" Morrison told LiveScience. "We have ethnographic examples from modern Africa and historical examples from ancient India that show utensils, such as tweezers and rasps, were used to pluck in-turned eyelashes and to scour away the afflicted eyelids." [

http://www.livescience.com/28806-roman-cosmetics-eye-disease.html

Modern Tech to Be Used in Exploring Mexico’s Teotihuacan Ancient Site

robot will soon begin exploring the last stretch of a tunnel found at the archaeological site of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, the third time anywhere in the world that such an automaton is used to design excavation strategies.
The tunnel, discovered under the Temple of the Plumed Serpent, or Quetzalcoatl, is believed to lead to a chamber almost 2,000 years old, probably a place where dignitaries of the pre-Columbian city received their investiture or were buried, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said.
The Tlaloc II-TC robot, which will be the first to travel the remaining 30 to 35 meters (100 to 115 feet) of the tunnel, is composed of three independent mechanisms, the first being the transport vehicle that reaches a length of over a meter (3 1/4 feet) once its arms are stretched out.
The robotic arms serve to deal with any obstacles in the vehicle’s path.
With the exploration of these areas, the INAH looks forward to making some of the most important archaeological discoveries at Teotihuacan, one of the largest cities of Mesoamerica in pre-Columbian times.
http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/modern-tech-to-be-used-in-exploring-mexicos-teotihuacan-ancient-site

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A flair for imperfections

The axe from Hundvåg is damaged by a succession of failed strokes in both edge and body, suggesting that it was sculpted by an unskilled knapper, probably a child. Credit: Terje Tveit, Archeological Museum, UiS To most people, a useless flint axe is just that. To archaeologist Sigrid Alræk Dugstad, it is a source of information about Stone Age children.

Whereas arrowheads, axes and other formal tools have traditionally received a lot of attention in research, the archaeologist Sigrid Alræk Dugstad now concentrates on what is at the bottom of the hierarchy, namely the production debris and the unfinished and discarded products. In the article "Early child caught knapping: A novice early Mesolithic flintknapper in southwestern Norway," she has turned upside down the hierarchy of objects from the Early Stone Age. "A succession of failed strokes, terminating in many hinge and step fractures, indicates that axe was made by a novice flintknapper, probably a child," Dugstad says. She refers to archaeological assemblage from an open air-site found on the island of Hundvåg in south-western Norway which she studied in connection with her master's thesis. Findings in production debris During the excavations at Hundvåg in Stavanger in 2001 and 2002, five sites from the early Stone Age were investigated, excavations that were to become important in archaeological research. Dugstad was field supervisor of the excavation field, where well preserved sites were examined, in spite of the activities in the area in recent times. The lithic assemblage on one of the sites was not to be mistaken. This was a knapping site where people had produced flint tools. They had also made use of the low rocky outcrop to dismember animals and prepare skins and hides. This work area was situated a short distance from the dwelling sites, but had been an integral part of the settlement and undoubtedly much used. Dugstad noticed the flint assemblage lying here. Much of the deposited artefacts were wing-shaped, side-edge flakes, characteristic of flake axe-production, and among the debris she found a discarded flake axe. google_protectAndRun("render_ads.js::google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);Ads by GoogleCursos de Inglés Irlanda - Aprende inglés en Dublín con EF Todas las edades y niveles - www.ef.com.es The production debris and the axe itself are most likely results of knapping actions performed by an inexperienced knapper. Damaged by errors The axe is not functional and has never been used. It was discarded together with about 450 flint artefacts on the site. Both the body and the edge of the axe had been damaged by a succession of failed strokes. Finally, it had been impossible to correct the repeated errors, and the axe was thrown into the waste heap. Dugstad is of the opinion that the axe is most likely a product of a child or a young individual in a practising phase. "The axe has probably not been produced by an adult. Errors are too numerous and striking to have been performed by a skilled and experienced flintknapper. This is probably a child's work," says Ms Dugstad. According to the archaeologist, a skilled knapper will also make mistakes, and does not always reveal maximum proficiency, but he or she will be able to correct inevitable mistakes as they occur without compromising the outcome. "In this case, one can see that the axe was made by a person with poorly developed theoretical knowledge and motoric skills. Given the numerous and characteristic failed strokes, it is also probable that the beginner had not received any form of direct instructions on how to proceed in manufacturing the tool. Maybe the purpose was to practise the technique in itself rather than produce a finished tool," Dugstad says. Investigating the Stone Age settlement In France, especially since the beginning of the 1990s, some very demanding investigations of Stone Age settlements have been carried out. Research on flaked stone tools and production debris has shown that it is possible to reveal the work and the movements of the individuals. These case studies show that debris from tool production is ideal as a starting point for distinguishing between different levels of skill among flint knappers and thus also the playing and imitations by children. In Norway, new excavation methods over the past ten years and influence, especially from French and Danish research, have provided opportunities and increased interest in learning more about individual flintknappers. "It is obvious that children must have been an important part of everyday life in Stone Age settlements. The contrast between the number of children who have lived, and the lack of ability to perceive and define them in the archaeological material is striking," Dugstad says. Traditionally, archaeologists who have worked with the pioneer settlement phase have been concerned with immigration routes, the overall settlement pattern and how these are related to the exploitation of different ecological zones. Dugstad will also emphasize other things in her studies of the past. "I would like to search for a more detailed picture of settlement life. What activities took place at the sites and how were they organized? Where and how was knowledge transferred between generations? Traditions in tool technology and transmission of knowledge are central subjects. Recent archaeological investigations, where larger adjoined areas have been uncovered, can give a better understanding of the social organization at the micro-level," she says. Not necessary miniature tools In the Early Mesolithic there seems to have been good access to flint in Western Norway. Norwegian bedrock does not contain flint, but flint stones frozen in drift ice were brought here by ocean current and deposited along the coast. Flint knapping was one of the most important technologies in the Stone Age. Therefore, the researcher believes that it is possible to find traces of apprentices and learning situations especially along the west coast. The durability of flake stone tools and production debris ensures that important information about technological processes and the social context of the acquisition of knapping skills are preserved. "The sharp cutting edges of the stone tools were crucial for performing a number of tasks. In the earliest settlement phase in Norway, when groups settled in a new and foreign landscape, it is reasonable to assume that every individual needed basic knowledge and skills in this type of tool production. It is not often that children are associated with flint knapping. Assuming that knowledge and skill are gradually acquired over time, it seems likely that much of the learning and transfer of knowledge would have taken place during childhood, and that children underwent a form of apprenticeship," Dugstad believes. The need to practise before achieving good results implies that children are responsible for a far greater share of products than previously observed in the archaeological assemblage. She points out that children, women and men lived and worked in the settlements. Therefore, the archaeologist believes that the settlements, where different groups and sexes interacted, provide the best opportunity to find tangible evidence of children. It seems likely that the transfer of knowledge, with regard to both the production and use of stone tools, took place relatively early in life as play, imitation or in the form of verbal or practical instruction. "I don't think that children's products necessarily are miniature versions. It's more natural that the children have tried to make things in actual size according to the patterns of the adults. We see this also in various new experiments with flint knapping where children and adults have participated," says Ms Dugstad. Archaeological pioneering work "Children archaeology challenges the mindset of the researcher, both in terms of collected archaeological material, and when the archaeologist goes out into the field to make hypotheses about where the settlements have been in the past, and who the people were who once lived there." This statement is made by the pioneer in children archaeology, Professor Grete Lillehammer. Since the early 1970s, she has worked with this topic, and toward the end of the 1980s she wrote the first pioneering article o

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-04-flair-imperfections.html#jCp

n research on children in the past, an article that woke up the academic community in Europe. "Evidently, working with prehistoric people is particularly demanding for the archaeologist. At the same time as the children were linked to the adult world, they were kids who liked to run off to play hide and seek. Traces of children's play are marginal and spread over a large and complex area, and therefore not easy to detect," Lillehammer explains. She still works actively to support new researchers who are about to start their programme in children archaeology, a work that is important to increase awareness of children in the past and make it natural to look for evidence of children in the excavations.