Unearthed! Year-end 2024, Part 2

Published Jan 15, 2025, 2:53 PM

Continuing the end of year 2024 edition of Unearthed!, this installment includes these categories: potpourri, edibles and potables, and books and letters

Research:

  • Giuffrida, Angela. “Painting found by junk dealer in cellar is original Picasso, experts claim.” The Guardian. 10/1/2024. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/oct/01/painting-found-by-junk-dealer-in-cellar-is-original-picasso-experts-claim
  • Lawson-Tancred, Jo. “‘Horrible’ Painting Found by a Junk Dealer Could Be a Picasso Worth $6 Million.” ArtNet. 10/1/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/junk-dealer-picasso-2545786
  • Kuta, Sarah. “This Shipwreck’s Location Was a Mystery for 129 Years. Then, Two Men Found It Just Minutes Into a Three-Day Search.” Smithsonian. 9/30/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-shipwrecks-location-was-a-mystery-for-129-years-then-two-men-found-it-just-minutes-into-a-three-day-search-180985165/ Peru murals https://archaeology.org/news/2024/10/01/additional-moche-murals-uncovered-in-peru-at-panamarca/
  • Leung, Maple. “Team makes distilled wine in replica of bronze vessel found at emperor’s tomb.” MyNews. 12/13/2024. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3290709/team-makes-distilled-wine-replica-bronze-vessel-found-emperors-tomb
  • Feldman, Ella. “Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers From ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Sell for a Record-Breaking $28 Million.” Smithsonian. 12/10/2024. s-from-the-wizard-of-oz-sell-for-a-record-breaking-28-million-180985620/
  • Tamisiea, Jack. “Hairballs Shed Light on Man-Eating Lions’ Menu.” The New York Times. 10/11/2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/science/tsavo-lions-man-eating-dna.html
  • Spears, Nancy Marie. “First-ever oral histories of Indian boarding school survivors, collected with care.” ICT. 10/16/2024. https://ictnews.org/news/first-ever-oral-histories-of-indian-boarding-school-survivors-collected-with-care
  • Kuta, Sarah. “Biden Issues a ‘Long Overdue’ Formal Apology for Native American Boarding Schools.” Smithsonian. 10/25/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/biden-issues-a-long-overdue-biden-formally-apologizes-for-native-american-boarding-schools-180985341/
  • Schrader, Adam. “A New Monument Confronts the Dark Legacy of Native American Boarding Schools.” ArtNet. 12/13/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/indian-boarding-school-national-monument-2586044
  • Boucher, Brian. “This Contemporary Artist Will Complete a Missing Scene in the Millennium-Old Bayeux Tapestry.” Artnet. 10/29/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/helene-delprat-complete-bayeux-tapestry-2560937
  • Reuters. “Ancient Pompeii site uncovers tiny house with exquisite frescoes.” 10/24/2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ancient-pompeii-site-uncovers-tiny-house-with-exquisite-frescoes-2024-10-24/
  • The History Blog. “Tiny house frescoed like mansion in Pompeii.” 10/25/2024. http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/71444
  • Bowman, Emma. “New DNA evidence upends what we thought we knew about Pompeii victims.” NPR. 11/9/2024. https://www.npr.org/2024/11/08/g-s1-33553/pompeii-dna-evidence-vesuvius-victims
  • Benzine, Vittoria. “Pompeii Experts Back Up Pliny’s Historical Account of Vesuvius Eruption.” ArtNet. 12/13/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pompeii-pliny-vesuvius-eruption-date-2587228
  • Willsher, Kim. “‘Bodies were dropped down quarry shafts’: secrets of millions buried in Paris catacombs come to light.” The Guardian. 10/19/2024. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/19/bodies-quarry-shafts-millions-buried-paris-catacombs
  • Kuta, Sarah. “See the Wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’ in Astonishing Detail With This New 3D Scan.” Smithsonian. 10/18/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-wreck-of-ernest-shackletons-endurance-in-astonishing-detail-with-this-new-3d-scan-180985274/
  • Boucher, Brian. “In a Rare Move, Boston’s Gardner Museum Snaps Up a Neighboring Apartment Building.” ArtNet. 10/18/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/boston-gardner-museum-buys-apartment-building-2555811
  • Whipple, Tom. “Letters reveal the quiet genius of Ada Lovelace.” The Times. 6/14/2024. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/ada-lovelace-letters-shed-light-woman-science-1848-kdztdh9x0
  • Lawson-Tancred, Jo. “This 18th-Century Painting Could Rewrite Black History in Britain.” ArtNet. 10/14/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/this-18th-century-painting-could-rewrite-black-history-in-britain-2552814 Factum Foundation. “William Blake’s Earliest Engravings.” 2024. https://factumfoundation.org/our-projects/digitisation/archiox-analysing-and-recording-cultural-heritage-in-oxford/william-blakes-earliest-engravings/
  • Whiddington, Richard. “William Blake’s Earliest Etchings Uncovered in Stunning High-Tech Scans.” ArtNet. 10/23/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/william-blake-earliest-engravings-copper-plates-bodleian-2558053
  • Kinsella, Eileen. “X-Ray Analysis of Gauguin Painting Reveals Hidden Details… and a Dead Beetle.” ArtNet. 12/2/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gauguin-little-cat-analysis-van-gogh-museum-2577081
  • Oster, Sandee. “Archaeologists reveal musical instruments depicted in Zimbabwe's ancient rock art.” Phys.org. 11/29/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-archaeologists-reveal-musical-instruments-depicted.html
  • Niskanen, Niina. “Prehistoric hunter-gatherers heard the elks painted on rocks talking.” EurekAlert. 11/25/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1065949
  • Metcalfe, Tom. “WWII British sub that sank with 64 on board finally found off Greek Island.” LiveScience. https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/wwii-british-sub-that-sank-with-64-on-board-finally-found-off-greek-island
  • Medievalists.net. “Tudor Sailors’ Bones Reveal Link Between Handedness and Bone Chemistry.” https://www.medievalists.net/2024/11/tudor-sailors-bones-reveal-link-between-handedness-and-bone-chemistry/
  • Benzine, Vittoria. “Astonishing Trove of Rare Roman Pottery Uncovered Beneath Sicilian Waters.” 11/7/2014. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/rare-richborough-pottery-underwater-sicily-2565780
  • Kuta, Sarah. “Divers Recover 300-Year-Old Glass Onion Bottles From a Shipwreck Off the Coast of Florida.” Smithsonian. 10/31/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/divers-recover-300-year-old-glass-onion-bottles-from-a-shipwreck-off-the-coast-of-florida-180985358/
  • Babbs, Verity. “This Sunken Ship May Be the 1524 Wreckage From Vasco da Gama’s Final Voyage.” ArtNet. 11/30/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/sunken-ship-vasco-da-gama-2577760
  • Roberts, Michael. “Researchers locate WWI shipwreck off Northern Ireland.” PhysOrg. 12/3/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-wwi-shipwreck-northern-ireland.html
  • ACS Newsroom. “New hydrogel could preserve waterlogged wood from shipwrecks.” EurekAlert. 12/3/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1066769
  • Dedovic, Yaz. “Bad weather led Dutch ship into Western Australian coast.” EurekAlert. 12/8/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1067496
  • Bassi, Margherita. “1,200 years ago, a cat in Jerusalem left the oldest known evidence of 'making biscuits' on a clay jug.” LiveScience. 8/28/2024. https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/1-200-years-ago-a-cat-in-jerusalem-left-the-oldest-known-evidence-of-making-biscuits-on-a-clay-jug
  • Oster, Sandee. “Tunisian snail remains provide insights on a possible 7700-year-old local food tradition.” Phys.org. 10/8/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-tunisian-snail-insights-year-local.html
  • Medievalists.net. “Vikings and Indigenous North Americans: New Walrus DNA Study Reveals Early Arctic Encounters.” https://www.medievalists.net/2024/10/vikings-and-indigenous-north-americans-new-walrus-dna-study-reveals-early-arctic-encounters/
  • Billing, Lotte. “Early interactions between Europeans and Indigenous North Americans revealed.” Lund University. Via EurekAlert. 9/28/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1059638
  • Bliege Bird, R., Bird, D.W., Martine, C.T. et al. Seed dispersal by Martu peoples promotes the distribution of native plants in arid Australia. Nat Commun 15, 6019 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50300-5
  • Tutella, Francisco. “Landscape effects of hunter-gatherer practices reshape idea of agriculture.” 10/10/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1060928
  • aranto, S., Barcons, A.B., Portillo, M. et al. Unveiling the culinary tradition of ‘focaccia’ in Late Neolithic Mesopotamia by way of the integration of use-wear, phytolith & organic-residue analyses. Sci Rep 14, 26805 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-78019-9
  • Brinkhof, Tim. “People Were Making Focaccia Bread 9,000 Years Ago.” ArtNet. 12/15/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-focaccia-recipe-study-2580239
  • Ward, Kim. “How MSU is bringing shipwrecked seeds back to life.” MSU Today. 11/6/2024. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2024/how-msu-is-bringing-shipwrecked-seeds-back-to-life
  • Kuta, Sarah. “Seeds That Were Submerged in a Lake Huron Shipwreck for Nearly 150 Years.” Smithsonian. 11/25/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-are-trying-to-make-whiskey-using-rye-seeds-that-were-submerged-in-a-lake-huron-shipwreck-for-nearly-150-years-180985493/
  • Tutella, Francisco. “Peaches spread across North America through Indigenous networks.” Penn State. Via EurekAlert. 11/22/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1065907
  • Irish Central Staff. “2000-year-old fig discovered by Irish archaeologists in Dublin.” Irish Central. 11/25/2024. https://www.irishcentral.com/news/archaeologists-fig-drumanagh-dublin
  • Kieltyka, Matt. “Genetic study of native hazelnut challenges misconceptions about how ancient Indigenous peoples used the land.” EurekAlert. 12/5/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1067317
  • Pflughoeft, Aspen. “2,800-year-old bakery — with tools and food remains — uncovered in Germany” Miami Herald. 11/29/2024. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article296316409.html#storylink=cpy
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences. “Traces of 10,000-year-old ancient rice beer discovered in Neolithic site in Eastern China.” Phys.org. 12/9/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-year-ancient-rice-beer-neolithic.html#google_vignette
  • McHugh, Chris. “Medieval origins of Oxford college unearthed.” BBC. 12/15/2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0el584nrvo
  • Morgan Library and Museum. “New Work by Frédéric Chopin Recently Discovered in the Collection of the Morgan Library and Museum.” https://host.themorgan.org/press/Morgan_Chopin_MediaRelease.pdf
  • Henley, Jon. “Remains of man whose death was recorded in 1197 saga uncovered in Norway.” The Guardian. 10/27/2014. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/27/remains-of-man-whose-death-was-recorded-in-1197-saga-uncovered-in-norway
  • Babbs, Verity. “Archaeologists Unearth a 2,000-Year-Old Inscription Honoring an Ancient Wrestler.” ArtNet. 10/26/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-unearth-a-2000-year-old-inscription-honoring-an-ancient-wrestler-2557032
  • Whiddington, Richard. Amateur Sleuth Uncovers Bram Stoker’s Lost Supernatural Tale—A Precursor to ‘Dracula’?” ArtNet. 11/22/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/lost-bram-stoker-story-gibbet-hill-found-2557360
  • British Library. “An unknown leaf from the Poor Clares of Cologne.” Medieval Manuscripts Blog. https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2024/12/poor-clares-of-cologne.html
  • Thompson, Karen. “The Incas used stringy objects called 'khipus' to record data—we just got a step closer to understanding them.” Phys.org. 11/13/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-incas-stringy-khipus-closer.html
  • Whiddington, Richard. “An Archaeologist’s 150-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Is Uncovered by Norwegian Researchers.” ArtNet. 11/20/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-150-year-old-message-uncovered-norwegian-lorange-2572859
  • Kuta, Sarah. “Read the 132-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Found Hidden Inside the Walls of a Scottish Lighthouse.” Smithsonian. 11/26/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/read-the-132-year-old-message-in-a-bottle-found-hidden-inside-the-walls-of-a-scottish-lighthouse-180985528/
  • Benzine, Vittoria. “Professor Translates 2,600-Year-Old Inscription That Linguists Claimed Could Never Be Read.” ArtNet. 11/20/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/2600-year-old-inscription-decoded-2572494
  • Alberge, Dalya. “16th-century graffiti of Tower of London prisoners decoded for first time.” The Observer. 12/1/2024. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/dec/01/16th-century-graffiti-of-tower-of-london-prisoners-decoded-for-first-time
  • Oster, Sandee. “Ancient Iberian slate plaques may be genealogical records.” Phys.org. 12/3/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-ancient-iberian-slate-plaques-genealogical.html
  • Robbins, Hannah. “Oldest known alphabet unearthed in ancient Syrian city.” EurekAlert. 11/20/2024. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1065620
  • Göttingen University. “Press release: Skill and technique in Bronze Age spear combat.” 8/10/2024. https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=7562
  • Jackson, Justin. “'Getting high' in Paleolithic hunting: Elevated positions enhance javelin accuracy but reduce atlatl efficiency.” Phys.org. 10/16/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-paleolithic-hunters-benefited-high.html#google_vignette
  • Diamond, L.E., Langley, M.C., Cornish, B. et al. Aboriginal Australian weapons and human efficiency. Sci Rep 14, 25497 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76317-w
  • Langley, Michelle and Laura Diamond. “First-ever biomechanics study of Indigenous weapons shows what made them so deadly.” Phys.org. 10/28/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-biomechanics-indigenous-weapons-deadly.html
  • Babbs, Verity. “Rare Portrait of the Last Byzantine Emperor Unearthed in Stunning Greek Find.” ArtNet. 12/18/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/byzantine-emperor-constantine-xi-fresco-greece-2589737
  • Nelson, George. “Archeologists Discover Hidden Tomb in Ancient City of Petra and a Skeleton Holding Vessel Resembling Indiana Jones’s ‘Holy Grail’.” 10/22/2024. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/petra-ancient-city-jordan-secret-hidden-tomb-archaeology-1234721828/
  • Osho-Williams, Olatunji. “Archaeologists in Petra Discover Secret Tomb Hiding Beneath a Mysterious Structure Featured in ‘Indiana Jones’.” Smithsonian. 10/15/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-in-petra-discover-secret-tomb-hiding-beneath-a-mysterious-structure-featured-in-indiana-jones-180985275/
  • Anderson, Sonja. “Archaeologists Say This Tiny Amulet Is the Oldest Evidence of Christianity Found North of the Alps.” Smithsonian. 12/19/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-say-this-tiny-amulet-is-the-oldest-evidence-of-christianity-found-north-of-the-alps-180985674/
  • UCL News. “Stonehenge may have been built to unify the people of ancient Britain.” 12/20/2024. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/dec/stonehenge-may-have-been-built-unify-people-ancient-britain
  • Casey, Michael. “Centuries-old angels uncovered at Boston church made famous by Paul Revere.” Associated Press. 12/24/2024. https://apnews.com/article/boston-old-church-angels-uncovered-paul-revere-4656e86d3f042b8ab8f7652a7301597c
  • Benzine, Vittoria. “Thousands of Stolen Greek Artifacts Just Turned Up in an Athens Basement.” ArtNet. 12/19/2024. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/stolen-greek-artifacts-found-athens-basement-2589662
  • The History Blog. “Unique 500-year-old wooden shoe found in Netherlands cesspit.” 12/24/2024. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/71988
  • Anderson, Sonja. “Archaeologists Discover Rare Clay Commander Among Thousands of Life-Size Terra-Cotta Soldiers in China.” Smithsonian. 12/31/2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-discover-rare-clay-commander-among-thousands-of-life-size-terra-cotta-soldiers-in-china-180985747/
  • Gammelby, Peter F. “Water and gruel—not bread: Discovering the diet of early Neolithic farmers in Scandinavia.” Phys.org. 12/20/2024. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-gruel-bread-diet-early-neolithic.html#google_vignette

 

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Tracey V.

Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. This is part two of our year end Unearthed for twenty twenty four. Again, that's when we talk about stuff that's been literally or figuratively unearthed.

In this part.

Two, we have some books and letters, we have some edibles and potables. We are starting out with just an entire section of the show that was stuff that didn't categorize well. But I always call the potpoury. So to kick that off, a shard of pottery from a dig at Mount Zion, outside Jerusalem's Old City has found not just a cat print, but claw marks and an imprint from the cat's fore leg, suggesting that a cat hung out and made biscuits on some clay that was drying in the sun. This piece of pottery is probably about twelve hundred years old, dating back to the Opposide period.

I love this a lot.

I love the cat prints that are randomly in pieces of artwork or manuscripts that describe was illuminating. Yes, but the idea that a kitty cat was like I'm gonna sit here and purr and flex my claws on this drying piece of pottery. I love it, Sunshine Yeah. DNA research into walrus ivory dating from the Viking era suggests that the Norse were not hunting walruses around the southern coastal areas of Greenland, which is what was previously thought. Instead, it seems like they were going deep into the high Arctic way to the north of their more southerly settlements. This means that there was probably ongoing contact between the Norse and the Inuit peoples living in those Arctic regions, including trading relationships that might date back to the eleventh century. At the same time, these trading relationships and this contact would have been really seasonal. The Norse probably would have been sailing north during a very short window in the summer before the ice made the seas impassable.

Again.

This research, in addition to looking at the DNA of the walruses, it involved sailing along these probable sea routes in a traditional Norwegian boat.

I love that too.

Researchers involved in this work characterized it really as a starting point, especially when it comes to the more human side of these interactions and in particular from the indigenous point of view. The Morgan Library and Museum in New York has announced the discovery of a previously unknown vault by Frederick Chopin. It's a handwritten copy of a piece that's only about a minute long, and it's only about the size of an index card. That one small manuscript contains twenty four measures of music that are meant to be played through once. According to the library's press release on the discovery, manuscripts like these were something Chopin used as gifts for people to put in their autograph albums. It's not signed, though, so he may have changed his mind about giving this particular one away. This piece is part of the Arthur Satz collection, which came to the Morgan in twenty nineteen, and while it was marked as Chopin's work at that time, it wasn't until a curator started cataloging this whole collection that they realized that the music on the card did not line up with any already known piece by Chopin. So this is the first significant discovery of a previously unknown piece by Chopin's This is the late nineteen thirties. In nineteen thirty eight, archaeologists in Norway found skeletal remains in a well at the castle of twelfth century Norwegian king sed As Sigurdsen. This work was disrupted by the Second World War, so the remains were not excavated at that time. Archaeologists returned to the site about ten years ago, and at that time they said there was a high probability that this body was someone who had been described in the Veras Saga, which relates events from Vera Sigurdson's life. One passage is about an attack on the king's castle that took place in eleven ninety seven, with the attackers getting into the castle through a secret door while its defenders were eating. After pillaging the castle and burning down the houses in the area, the attackers threw the body of someone who had been killed into a well and then filled that well with stones. This passed October, researchers announced the results of some work that supports this idea that it was this same person described as being thrown down the well. This includes radiocarbon dating that lines up with when the attack on the castle happened. One surprising find came from DNA that was extracted from one of the teeth. This person likely came from southern Norway, while Sigurdson and his castle's defenders would have been from central Norway. The really long standing assumption has been that, if this body really was the one described in the saga, that the invaders had thrown the body of one of the king's men down the well in order to humiliate the king and probably also to contaminate the water supply. But this DNA result means that the body the attackers threw down that well might have actually been one of their own. Some of this is still circumstantial, but if it is all correct, this may be the first time that DNA has been recovered from a specific person described in one of the sagas. Next back in February, authorities in Athens were in the process of evicting a tenant from a retail space in a building that was managed by the National Gallery Alexandro Sussos Museum, and somebody noticed in that retail space a hidden trap door. The trap door led to a storage area which the museum apparently had not realized was there, and that storage area turned out to be full of artifacts. So a museum representative contacted the Greek Ministry of Culture. The ministry released a statement in October saying that one hundred two objects dating from between eleven hundred BCE and thirty two BCE had been found there, including figurines drinking in storage vessels, as well as more than thirty religious pieces and a cash of thousands of coins that also included metals, weights, and seals. Many of these objects had been stored wrapped in newspaper, and the newspapers dated back to the nineteen forties, which is when the building's evicted tenants had first signed their lease. Some of their reporting around this has been kind of vague, like, I am not really clear on whether these evicted tenants were the ones to put these items in the storage area, or whether it was the prior occupants of the space. Whoever it was, why were they still down there decades later, what was going on with that? But authorities have described these objects as illegally acquired, so for now they're being restored and examined and there might be more information available on this later. Archaeologists in the Dutch city of Alkmaar, north of Amsterdam, have found a wooden shoe in a fifteenth century cesspit. This shoe is made of birch wood, and birch trees do not grow in the Netherlands, and it is also older than most of the other wooden shoes that have been unearthed so far. Although wooden shoes have a close connection with Dutch culture, only forty four of them have been found at archaeological sites in the Netherlands and Belgium. This shoe was found in pieces, but those pieces had been well.

Preserved and conservators were.

Able to reassemble it. And this seems like it was a really fashionable clog with a double heel, very well made, again from a wood that wouldn't have been available locally. It's described as equivalent to a size thirty six in modern European shoes, which is about a women's five and a half in the United States shoe measurement system. I've sort of imagined the wooden shoes as like common sense footwear that a laboring person might wear, although not necessarily super comfortable. But this seems like, you know, maybe a more wealthy or more affluent person's footwear. Maybe hopefully we'll have more info. Lastly, among the potpourris is the headline that annoyed Tracy for this installment of Unearthed, researchers in Jordan have found a previously undiscovered tomb under a monument called Alcasna or the Treasury in Petra. The tomb contains at least twelve human skeletons and artifacts that are believed to be at least two thousand years old, as well as a ceramic chalice. This followed ground penetrating radar studies done to see if the left and right sides of the monument were similar underground and tombs had previously been found under the other side in two thousand and three. Where this became annoying to me, so annoying that I almost did not put this in Unearthed at all, was that so many of the headlines made it sound as though petra.

Only role in the whole world in all.

Of history was as an Indiana Jones filming location, and it is true Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed in part at the Treasury. Some of the news coverage also focused on that chalice, noticing that it had sort of a visual similarity to the Holy Grail from the film.

That's obviously interesting.

A lot of other movies have also been filmed at Petra besides Indiana Jones and Petra also, it's an extremely distinctive historical site. It has a whole significant history of its own. So all the coverage just seemingly boiling it down to a thirty five year old movie kind of irritated me, even though I love that movie. Can I help you can help? My one hundred percent guess is that that is the only thing that most modern people can reference it with. See, I feel like Petra is so visually distinctive that it's memorable on it Where would those people have seen it? Though outside of Indiana Jones. So many other movies have also been filmed there. So anyway, I just I got sort of frustrated at the boiling down of it to only Indiana Jones. And so now we're just gonna take a sponsor break so I can get over it and we will talk about our FOODI fines we have so many edibles and potables. First researchers in Tunisia have found the remains of cooked snails that likely date back more than seventy seven hundred years, and some of these are unique because they have a membrane that can temporarily close off the opening of the shell called an epifram, and that epiphram is still intact. This raises some questions. Most land snails produce an epiphram only in specific climactic conditions when they need to protect themselves from losing too much moisture. Modern people who consume land snails with that epiphram intact have to harvest them from specific places at specific times of year, and then preserve them in a specific way to make sure that epiphram does stay intact. In northern Tunisia today, this happens when the snails have burrowed underground and developed an epiphram in preparation to essentially hibernate through the hottest months of the summer. So people have to know where the snails are and how to dig them up without damaging them, and then store them so that epiphram stays intact until they are prepared. Only forty one of the more than thirty five thousand snails at this site had an epiphram, but it's not clear whether others did have them when they were first harvested, but they were either removed or destroyed somehow, or just didn't survived. That seventy seven hundred years that has passed since then, But this does suggest that people living more than seven thousand years ago knew how to find, collect, and preserve these snails, and that this may be cultural knowledge that was passed down through hundreds of generations, so that people who are still following those traditional food ways are using knowledge that has been passed down through those centuries. Next, researchers in Australia have worked with the Martu Aboriginal people to study seed dispersal in non domesticated plants. They looked at four plants, bush, raisin, bush tomato, and lovegrass, all of which the Virtuo people gather and eat, and fan flower, which they do not typically forage. This research involved accompanying Martwu harvesters and seeing how they prepared and consumed the food. This was combined with satellite data and ecological surveys to study humans impact on the land. So the researchers found that bush, raisin, bush tomato, and love grass all rely on people for their seed dispersal, and that this was especially true of the bush tomato. Exactly how that seed dispersal happened really varied from plants to plant, So, for example, people who are harvesting bush tomatoes might taste them out in the field to make sure they're sweet and discard ones that are not and scatter those seeds in the process. Bush raisins also only grow where people are using fire as part of their hunting practices for small animals, Researchers involved in this work talked about expanding how we think of agriculture. Typically, when people talk about agriculture, the focus is on sedentary communities who are growing specific, domesticated crops in specific places. The Martwo are more nomadic, but they are they're still having a clear impact on the wild plants that they harvest. That has some similarities to research conducted in British Columbia, Canada involving hazel nuts. This research started with indigenous oral traditions across multiple communities involving the cultivation of the beaked hazel nut and how those hazel nuts are used, and then that combined with DNA research into different hazel nut specimens and an exploration of the words for hazel nut in different indigenous languages. The finding there was that the word for hazel nut was often really similar, even in languages that are not themselves similar. They found genetically similar clusters of hazel nut plants growing in areas that were very remote and disconnected from one another. So all of this suggests an intentional cultivation and transplanting of hazel nuts by indigenous peoples going back at least seven thousand years, so that really contradicts descriptions of these parts of North America in terms like quote wild and quote uncultivated. According to research published in the journal's Scientific Reports, Neolithic pans known as husking trays, which date back to between seven thousand and five thousand BCE in Mesopotamia, were used to bake a bread that is very like facaca. This was based on analysis of residues inside the trays, which found that they were used for a range of foods, with some of them being used for a bread that was baked along with lard or oil. The researchers also made experimental replicas of the trays and then used them to bake both plane doughs and dough that had been seasoned with a plant oil or animal fat. The trays were baked in dome shaped ovens for about two hours at an initial temperature of about four hundred twelve degrees Celsius.

It's a lot hotter.

Than a typical oven today, but these were ovens that would have been powered by fire, which would then decrease in its temperature every time we talked about this in our baking interview not long ago, researchers found that the breads that were seasoned with fat or oil, they were a lot softer and more flavorful, much like facaccia. They also conducted some usewhar analysis on these experimental replica trays to study what exactly happened to the pans as a result of being used for this baking. And speaking of bread, archaeologists in southern Germany have found the remains of a twenty eight hundred year old bakery with bread and cooking tools still inside.

Most of the.

Food remains found there are grain based, including oats and spelt, although there were some berries as well. On a similar note, archaeologists working on the island of Funen in Denmark have found evidence of grains and grinding stones there that both date back to about fifty five hundred years. A lot of the time, when archaeologists find both grains and grinding stones at an archaeological site, they conclude that the people there were grinding cereals into flour to make some kind of bread. But after examining the grinding stones, this team came to a different conclusion. The starch gnuals that they found on the grinding stones were not from cereal grains. They were from some other, as yet unidentified plants. The grinding stones also did not have the kinds of war marks that usually come from grinding cereals into flour, So the conclusion was that these Neolithic peoples were eating grains. They found charred grains of barley, emmor wheat and Durham wheat, but they were making them into a porridge or a gruel rather than turning them into flour and making them into bread, and the grinding was for some other purpose. Next in research that could also have been filed under shipwrecks, the James R. Bentley sank in a storm while crossing Lake Huron in eighteen seventy eight. Its cargo was full of rye, and now researchers have recovered some of that rye and they are trying to use it to make whiskey. Unlike the way some of the headlines make it sound, they did not retrieve grain from the shipwreck and then take it right to the distillery. Instead, divers brought up tubes full of rye from the wreck, and it's one of the few wrecks in Lake Huron that is privately owned. Otherwise that move would have been illegal, but they put those tubes on ice to get them to Michigan State University so that researchers could work with them. And once they got there, some of the grain was obviously spoiled, but some of it seemed to still be good. First, botanists tried to get this grain to germinate that un fortunately did not work. Their next step was DNA research to try to figure out which modern breeds of rye are the most similar to this one. Their eventual plan is to transfer chromosomal segments from this grain into a very similar rye species, and then the ultimate goal is for that to become a plantable, growable seed, and then that is what they plan for Michigan distillers to turn into a unique whiskey. I got very excited at the idea that it was like, we got some rye from a shipwreck and we're making it into whiskey.

But it is a more involved process.

Than that that seems like a way to make a very expensive spirit. To me, for sure, that would make a lot of money. This is more like, in addition to the whiskey part, this is also about trying to like revive a strain of rye that was important to Michigan at the time that the shipwreck happened.

Yeah, I love it. H It's very cool.

Archaeologists in China have found evidence of rice beer dating back ten thousand years. This came from analysis of the residues on twelve pottery fragments. Rice was present in a lot of the residues and some of them also showed evidence of fermentation. There was also some evidence of yeast that are still used in traditional brewing methods today. The tomb of Western Han dynasty emperor Luhu, who ruled for only twenty seven tumultuous days, was excavated back in twenty fifteen, and one of the things that was unearthed was a bronze distilling vessel. We talked in our recent episode on Hangovers about how the earliest stills probably were used to make medicines and perfumes rather than alcoholic beverages, and it's believed that distilled wine dates back to the twelfth or thirteenth century in China. Specifically, this bill was a lot older than that known distilling of wines dating back to about two thousand years ago, and the team wanted to see if it could have been used to distill wine. Remnants of tarot root and various fruits had been found in the original vessel, so the team tried to work out a wine recipe that would have included those ingredients, and that worked. Their successful attempt to distill wine suggests that it was at least possible that the vessel was used for that purpose. Next up, peaches. Peaches are really associated with the American South. They are native to China, though they were introduced to the Americas by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. But according to new research published in the journal Nature Communications, the spread of peach trees across the Americas did not just come from European colonists. Radiocarbon dating of peach pits found at site in what's now North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas suggests that peaches were widespread around indigenous settlements in the Southeast by the year sixteen twenty. The origin point of a lot of these trees probably was the Spanish settlements, but then indigenous peoples carried and cultivated them well beyond those settlements. This included finding peach pits in post holes at a Muscogean farm site that predated the founding of the city of Saint Augustine, Florida. Saint Augustine is, of course, considered to be the oldest Spanish city in what's now the United States. Archaeologists working in Ireland have found the charred remains of a two thousand year old fig at a trading post at which trade was carried out with the Roman Empire. Although fig seeds have been found at Irish archaeological sites before, this is the earliest example of the actual fruit, which because it had been burned in our last food find, Archaeologists working at the site of Oriel College in Oxford, founded in thirteen twenty six, have found its original kitchen, and the finds there include a roasting hearth and an oven base. And now we'll take a break and then come back for some books and letters. Now we have got quite a few fines to file under books and letters. Archaeologists in the Turkish port city of Anna Murriam have found a complete thirteen line inscription honoring a wrestler named Kakilianus. This is believed to be about two thousand years old, and it's inscribed into a stone that weighs an estimated half a ton, so it's possible that this stone was originally the base of a statue that was meant to honor this wrestler. Greek inscription praises him for winning a recent tournament. Bram Stoker has a new short story out kind of. This story is called Gibbet Hill and it ran in the Dublin Daily Express on December seventeenth, eighteen ninety seven, years before Stoker published his famous novel Dracula. But that short story didn't make its way into collections of Stoker's known work or his archival papers. It was sort of forgotten about until a modern day pharmacist named Brian Cleary spotted a reference to it in an ad that ran in the Daily Express a couple of weeks after its publication while he was going through some old newspapers. The newly rediscovered book was reissued at the Bram Stoker Festival in Dublin in October. This one also could have gone in the update section, since we have an episode on bram Stoker that we just ran as a Saturday Classic this past November. Next, the British Library has an exhibition called Medieval Women in their Own Words, which is running until March second of twenty twenty five, which is mind bogglingly enough this year very soon. This includes material related to several women we have covered on the show before, including Juliana of Norwich and Christine de Pusan. While preparing for this exhibition, staff at the library found an unknown leaf made by the poor Claires of Cologne. The poor Claires were a branch of the Franciscan Order, and the Convent of the Poor Claires in Cologne was founded in thirteen oh four. This convent produced a lot of manuscripts in the fourteenth century. The leaf was originally the first page of a manuscript that contained all the chance to be sung at Mass, arranged chronologically beginning with the first sound and advent. This particular leaf has a small figure of a nun down at the bottom corner, along with an inscription crediting Sister Isabella of Guilders with giving twenty marks to complete the book. Other leafs from the same manuscript are housed in the warrav Rickarts Museum in Cologne, and the staff there also didn't know that there was a leaf in the British library. This leaf was part of a folio that had come from the Convent of Saint Clair, but it had not previously been mentioned in scholarship on the convent. Depictions of nuns kind of kneeling in the margins are a pretty common feature in the manuscripts that were produced at this convent. Usually they would name the nun and detail how she had contributed to the production of the manuscript. Coming up just a heads up, we are doing a guestimated pronunciation because we cannot find a guide. So research published in the journal Yahwa Pacha, journal of the Institute of Andean Studies has found a connection between two keepoos. These are the sets of knotted strings and chords that Andian people used to record and share information for more than a thousand years, but which people today no longer know how to interpret. They were particularly important to the Inca Empire. Today, much of this work is happening through digitized data that is available at the Open Keepoo Repository.

And the kipoo field guide.

This research looked specifically at two keipoos found in northern Chile. One is the largest one of them ever found, containing more than eighteen hundred chords. The other is a lot smaller, containing about six hundred chords, but with really complex arrangements. It appears that these two kipos contain the same information, but that information is presented differently. The smaller keipoo is essentially a summary and reallocation of the information contained in the bigger one. It's not yet known exactly what that information is or why kipoo makers chose to make two kipoos that presented the same information in two ways. Next, in our autumn installment of Unearthed last year, we talked about a message and a bottle that had been left by archaeologist PJ. There at a site where he worked in eighteen twenty five, and we have a similar find this time. That is a bottle containing coins, a business card, and a note written by Norwegian archaeologist Anders Lrange at the site of one hundred foot long Viking ship that had been burned as part of a funeral ritual roughly one thousand years ago. Archaeologists found this bottle while re excavating the same ship, which had only been partially excavated back in the nineteenth century. The note gives an overview of the excavation, although not everything in it matches up to what archaeologists found in this re excavation. The project release on this find doesn't frame this as carelessness or inaccuracy on la Range's part, though more than he was overseeing the entire site rather than doing the actual excavating, with that hands on work being done by locally hired laborers. I kind of love that he left his sort of research notes as a message in a bottle for future archaeologists. Another message in a bottle was found in the walls of course While Lighthouse in Scotland. This was dated September fourth, eighteen ninety two, and it was left by the engineers who had just installed a new lens at the lighthouse. This bottle was found by accident by engineers who were working on repairs to that same lens. Lighthouse keeper Barry Miller gave a statement to The New York Times saying it felt like those earlier engineers were communicating directly with them. According to research published in the journal Codmos. Historian Mark mum of Penn State University believes he has decoded an inscription on a carved piece of volcanic rock in eastern Turkia known as arslan Kaya. This inscription has been previously described as indecipherable. It's written in the ancient Phrygian language, which is not well understood today. The inscription is also more than twenty five hundred years old, so it has weathered over time. It was also originally part of a larger monument, and it's not really known what other contexts the rest of the monument might have provided for interpreting it. Munn was working from photos that he took of the inscription back in April during ideal lighting conditions, and then cross reference to that with other work on the inscription, including earlier photographs. He came to the conclusion that this monument honored the Phrygian mother goddess Madaran, who was also worshiped by the Greeks and Romans, and there are other monuments to her in this region. Speaking of indecipherable inscriptions, some of the graffiti at the Tower of London, previously described as illegible, has now been deciphered. This work also allowed researchers to identify far more examples of graffiti than were previously known to exist in this part of the tower, three point fifty four compared to the earlier number of seventy nine. This work included X ray analysis, laser scanning, and a technique called ranking light that involves illuminating a surface only from the side, giving a much more detailed view of the graffiti than was possible before. Most of these inscriptions are by prisoners who were essentially leaving evidence that they had been there, and work to decipher those marks is still ongoing. A small silver amulet has yet one more indecipherable thing. It was discovered in a grave in Germany in twenty eighteen, and it contained a tiny, tiny scroll made of silver foil. This amulet and its contents were about eighteen hundred years old, and there was really no way to try to unroll that scroll and read it without destroying it. But now, thanks to high resolution set scanning, it's been red It turns out it contains a prayer for protection that may actually be the oldest evidence of Christianity in Europe north of the Alps. It dates back to about fifty years before other known references to Christianity. At that time, Christianity was not widely practiced in the region, and it was also viewed with some suspicions, so it's likely that this scroll was hidden in the amulet and then kept secret. It's also unusual that the scroll only references Christianity, because these kinds of protective amulets often instead of being sort of a one specifically Christian thing, they often had references to multiple different faiths and traditions. Research published in the European Journal of Archaeology suggests that engraved slate plaques dating back to thirty two hundred to twenty two hundred BCE may contain genealogical records. The engravings on these plaques look very geometric and abstract, and more than sixteen hundred of them have been found at Iberian tombs and burial sites. The number of different explanations have been put forth about what these might mean, and this one is that they might represent a person's ancestry in a symbolic way, kind of like a heraldic emblem. And this conclusion is based in part on a plaque that seems like it has a rough draft on one side. And the final and corrected version on the other side, That process of seeming to correct something makes it seem like the details of this have a specific meaning. This led to some analysis of more than six hundred and fifty of these plaques.

And it can cclude vision that the number of lines or.

Motifs on a plaque might represent how far a person is away from a specific ancestor. And lastly, archaeologists in Syria may have found the oldest known example of an alphabet. This writing was etched into clay cylinders approximately the size of a finger, which have been dated to about twenty four hundred BCE. This is about five hundred years older than the previous earliest known alphabetic writing. Who knows if it will change EPCOT. Lastly, we will finish our twenty twenty four Unearthed with three projects that are all about my new favorite thing, which is researchers trying to figure stuff out about ancient weapons by making replicas of them and then using them. First, researchers who wanted to figure out how prehistoric spears were used made replicas of speed and of shields, and they got those into the hands of human fighters, and the results of this were published as Multi Stage Experiments in Bronze Age Spear Combat Insights on Wear, Formation, Trauma and Combat Contexts that was published in the Journal Archaeological Science. I found the findings of this one kind of hard to just sum up. They basically analyzed the wear and tear on the spears and the shields, and they also did some tests where they used animal tissues to replicate the human body. Next, research led by Kent State University in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History looked at the question of whether having the high ground would make throne weapons more accurate. They did this by putting people on a scissor lift, raising it to various heights, and having them throw javelins or use an adlato to throw darts. Their research suggested that throwing from a height made javelins more effective, but add lattle throne darts somewhat less effective. This may mean that prehistoric peoples chose one weapon over the other based on the terrain they were going to be using them in, or that they sought out specific terrain based on which weapon they had on hand. This was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports as the Gravity of Paleolithic hunting and this last one was initially part of a TV show that aired in Australia called First Weapons. This show was created by First Nations owned production company Blackfellow Films, and it explored a number of weapons developed and used by Aboriginal peoples, including returning boomerangs, spear throwers, and clubs and shields. Research related to the leangle, club and parrying shield and related to the koich, which is a type of acts that came out of this show and was published as Aboriginal Australian Weapons and Human Efficiency in the journal Scientific Reports. There are still Aboriginal master weapon makers who are making and using these weapons today, but the ones in this research were described as replicas. This paper looked specifically at the biomechanics of these two weapons, concluding that the leangle was more effective at delivering powerful blows, while the koach, which is a multi purpose tool, was more maneuverable but still very potentially lethal. And that cool story ends unearthed for this round. Uh hooray, We'll be back in three months. Do you have listener mail? I do have listener mail. This is from Janelle, and Janelle wrote, Hello Holly and Tracy. It's a rare moment when I hear something where I can come in. So I got excited during the Sarah Winnemucca Part one when it was mentioned that Trucky was her grandfather may have died of a tarantula bite. There have been no recording deaths due to tarantula venom anywhere. There are exceptionally rare occasions where a tarantula bite turns gangrenus and someone dies of the infection. Also, none of the species native to North America have medically significant venom. There is one genus in Central America who has more potent venom, but in general significant bites from Old World. That's Asia, Africa, Middle East species for pettax. I've included two of my fifteen species of tarantula that I keep. First is Mosy, a hyder. I'm laughing at Holly's excitement about this. I love tarantulas. We can talk about this in a second. First is Mosy, a hunter in curly hair who looks like she struck one of her tiny paws in a light socket. The second is Baris, an Indian ornamental who is one of those with medically significant venom, but who is also one of my shyest and most beautiful spiders. Many thanks for all you do. Janelle. Hey Janelle, First, thanks to this email. Second, thanks for these tarantulas pictures Holly. As I have said, it is very excited. We uh for a time. At my house when I was a child, we had a tarantula my brother. This was a classroom tarantula that somehow my brother became.

It's start steward of.

And this involved raising crickets to feed the tarantula in a cricket enclosure in the basement. I don't know if the crickets in my parents' basement now are descendants of the crickets that we farmed to feed the tarantula, but boy, there are still uh crickets about down there.

Yeah. Yeah.

My my brother and I had a conversation one time, talking hypothetically about like what if I needed to record podcasts for my parents' basement, And he sent me a text that just said crickets. It's like, oh, that's definitely would not work.

Be great. It could be ambient noise, it'd be beautiful. Yeah.

I had a lot of transulas as a kid. Oh yeah, because I when I was very tiny, I lived in Arizona, right, And before I had the sense to have fear, I had no hesitation to just pick them up. Sure, much to my mother's chagrin. Yeah, and would put them in a coffee can and take them home and be like, this is my transola now. And sometimes I would get to have a setup and sometimes not. Yeah, And for some reason I named every single one of them, Bill. I don't know why. They can cause some skin irritation, you know, handling them walking on you. That is the thing that can happen with some of them. Anyway, I don't actually know the details of Trucky's death. It's it's described in a number of sources as possibly after a tarantula bite. The idea of a wound becoming infected way more likely than and it necessarily would have been today. But yeah, I don't I don't know for sure where that comes from, whether that came from her writing, other people's writing, what exactly. But thank you so much Janelle for number one that information about tarantula's and number two, these great tarantula pictures looking like she stuck a paw in a light socket is a great description of this tarantula, which tarantula is black but has these white, very sticky, outy hairs. There's probably a specific name for what those hairs on a tarantula, I don't call. Would those be considered guard hairs?

I don't know. I was gonna say cillia, and that's not.

That undercoat that sticks out is called the guard hair, But yeah, I don't know if that applies to tarantula's. Yeah, I still love them. I'm a little scared to handle them now, not out of fear for myself, but because now I know enough to know that they are delicate and I could and that's I'm worried that I will Elmira Duff would be so excited that I will accidentally hurt them.

Yes, so thank you again.

Also come back on Friday because we're gonna talk some more on behind the scenes.

We were talking more about Petra. We've already determined this.

If you'd like to send us a note, we're at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com and we're a you know, in every podcast player that you can find, include the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you'll like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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