Archaeology

scientists-found-a-stone-age-megastructure-submerged-in-the-baltic-sea

Scientists found a Stone Age megastructure submerged in the Baltic Sea

Archaeology, megastructures, Science, stone age / /

They built a wall —

“Blinkerwall” may have been a “desert kite,” used to channel and hunt reindeer.

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Graphical reconstruction of a Stone Age wall as it may been used: as a hunting structure in a glacial landscape.

Enlarge / Graphical reconstruction of a Stone Age wall as it may been used: as a hunting structure in a glacial landscape.

Michał Grabowski

In 2021, Jacob Geersen, a geophysicist with the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in the German port town of Warnemünde, took his students on a training exercise along the Baltic coast. They used a multibeam sonar system to map the seafloor about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) offshore.  Analyzing the resulting images back in the lab, Geersen noticed a strange structure that did not seem like it would have occurred naturally.

Further investigation led to the conclusion that this was a manmade megastructure built some 11,000 years ago to channel reindeer herds as a hunting strategy. Dubbed the “Blinkerwall,” it’s quite possibly the oldest such megastructure yet discovered, according to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—although precisely dating these kinds of archaeological structures is notoriously challenging.

As previously reported, during the 1920s, aerial photographs revealed the presence of large kite-shaped stone wall mega-structures in deserts in Asia and the Middle East that most archaeologists believe were used to herd and trap wild animals. More than 6,000 of these “desert kites” have been identified as of 2018, although very few have been excavated. Last year, archaeologists found two stone engravings—one in Jordan, the other in Saudi Arabia—that they believe represent the oldest architectural plans for these desert kites.

However, these kinds of megastructures are almost unknown in Europe, according to Geersen et al., because they simply didn’t survive the ensuing millennia. But the Baltic Sea basins, which incorporate the Bay of Mecklenburg where Geersen made his momentous discovery, are known to harbor a dense population of submerged archaeological sites that are remarkably well-preserved—like the Blinkerwall.

Morphology of the southwest–northeast trending ridge that hosts the Blinkerwall and the adjacent mound.

Enlarge / Morphology of the southwest–northeast trending ridge that hosts the Blinkerwall and the adjacent mound.

J. Geersen et al., 2024

After they first spotted the underwater wall, Geeren enlisted several colleagues to lower a camera down to the structure. The images revealed a neat row of stones forming a wall under 1 meter (3.2 feet) in height. There are 10 large stones weighing several tons, spaced at intervals, and connected by more than 1,600 smaller stones (less than 100 kilograms or 220 pounds).  “Overall, the ten heaviest stones are all located within regions where the stonewall changes is strike direction,” the authors wrote. The length of the wall is 971 meters (a little over half a mile).

They concluded that the wall didn’t form through natural processes like a moving glacier or a tsunami, especially given the careful placement of the larger stones wherever the wall zigs or zags. It is more likely the structure is manmade and built over 10,000 years ago, although the lack of other archaeological evidence like stone tools or other artifacts makes dating the site difficult. They reasoned that before then, the region would have been covered in a sheet of ice. The immediate vicinity would have had plenty of stones laying about to build the Blinkerwall. Rising sea levels then submerged the structure until it was rediscovered in the 21st century. This would make the Blinkerwall among the oldest and largest Stone Age megastructures in Europe.

As for why the wall was built, Geeren et al. suggest that it was used as a desert kite similar to those found in Asia and the Middle East. There are usually two walls in a desert kite, forming a V shape, but the Blinkerwall happens to run along what was once a lake. Herding reindeer into the lake would have slowed the animals, making them easier to hunt. It’s also possible that there is a second wall hidden underneath the sediment on the seafloor. “When you chase the animals, they follow these structures, they don’t attempt to jump over them,” Geersen told The Guardian. “The idea would be to create an artificial bottleneck with a second wall or with the lake shore.”

3D model of a section of the Blinkerwall adjacent to the large boulder at the western end of the wall.

Enlarge / 3D model of a section of the Blinkerwall adjacent to the large boulder at the western end of the wall.

Philipp Hoy, Rostock University

A similar submerged stone-walled drive lane, known as “Drop 45,” is located in Lake Huron in the US; divers found various lithic artifacts around the drive lane, usually in circular spots that could have served as hunting blinds. The authors suggest that the larger blocks of the Blinkerwall could also have been hunting blinds, although further archaeological surveys will be needed to test this hypothesis.

“I think the case is well made for the wall as an artificial structure built to channel movements of migratory reindeer,” archaeologist Geoff Bailey of the University of York, who is not a co-author on the paper, told New Scientist. Vincent Gaffney of the University of Bradford concurred. “Such a find suggests that extensive prehistoric hunting landscapes may survive in a manner previously only seen in the Great Lakes,” he said. “This has very great implications for areas of the coastal shelves which were previously habitable.”

PNAS, 2024. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121 (About DOIs).

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Trio wins $700K Vesuvius Challenge grand prize for deciphering ancient scroll

ancient texts, Archaeology, digital unwrapping, Herculaneum scrolls, Science, Vesuvius Challenge / /
Text from one of the Herculaneum scrolls, unseen for 2,000 years.

Enlarge / Text from one of the Herculaneum scrolls has been deciphered. Roughly 95 percent of the scroll remains to be read.

Vesuvius Challenge

Last fall we reported on the use of machine learning to decipher the first letters from a previously unreadable ancient scroll found in an ancient Roman villa at Herculaneum—part of the 2023 Vesuvius Challenge. Tech entrepreneur and challenge co-founder Nat Friedman has now announced via X (formerly Twitter) that they have awarded the grand prize of $700,000 for producing the first readable text. Three winning team members are Luke Farritor, Yousef Nader, and Julian Schilliger.

As previously reported, the ancient Roman resort town Pompeii wasn’t the only city destroyed in the catastrophic 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Several other cities in the area, including the wealthy enclave of Herculaneum, were fried by clouds of hot gas called pyroclastic pulses and flows. But still, some remnants of Roman wealth survived. One palatial residence in Herculaneum—believed to have once belonged to a man named Piso—contained hundreds of priceless written scrolls made from papyrus, singed into carbon by volcanic gas.

The scrolls stayed buried under volcanic mud until they were excavated in the 1700s from a single room that archaeologists believe held the personal working library of an Epicurean philosopher named Philodemus. There may be even more scrolls still buried on the as-yet-unexcavated lower floors of the villa. The few opened fragments helped scholars identify a variety of Greek philosophical texts, including On Nature by Epicurus and several by Philodemus himself, as well as a handful of Latin works. But the more than 600 rolled-up scrolls were so fragile that it was long believed they would never be readable since even touching them could cause them to crumble.

Brent Searles’ lab at the University of Kentucky has been working on deciphering the Herculaneum scrolls for many years. He employs a different method of “virtually unrolling” damaged scrolls, which he used in 2016 to “open” a scroll found on the western shore of the Dead Sea, revealing the first few verses from the book of Leviticus. The team’s approach combined digital scanning with micro-computed tomography—a noninvasive technique often used for cancer imaging—with segmentation to digitally create pages, augmented with texturing and flattening techniques. Then they developed software (Volume Cartography) to unroll the scroll virtually.

Brent Seales, Seth Parker, and Michael Drakopoulos at the particle accelerator.

Enlarge / Brent Seales, Seth Parker, and Michael Drakopoulos at the particle accelerator.

Vesuvius Challenge

The older Herculaneum scrolls, however, were written with carbon-based ink (charcoal and water), so one would not get the same fluorescing in the CT scans. But Searles thought the scans could still capture minute textural differences indicating those areas of papyrus that contained ink compared to the blank areas, training an artificial neural network to do just that. And a few years ago, he had two of the intact scrolls analyzed at a synchrotron radiation lab in Oxford.

Then tech entrepreneurs Friedman and Daniel Gross heard about Searles’ work, and they all decided to launch the Vesuvius Challenge in March last year, reasoning that crowdsourcing would help decipher the scrolls’ contents that much faster. Searles released all the scans and code to the public as well as images of the flattened pieces. Some 1,500 teams have been collaborating on the challenge through Discord, and as each milestone is reached, the winner’s code is also made available so everyone can continue to build on those advances.

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archaeologists-discover-intact-medieval-gauntlet-at-kyburg-castle

Archaeologists discover intact medieval gauntlet at Kyburg Castle

Archaeology, Science / /

Did Thanos drop something? —

The team also unearthed fragments of the glove’s companion, worn on the opposite hand.

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Archaeologists discover intact medieval gauntlet at Kyburg Castle

Canton of Zurich

Archaeologists announced this week that they have discovered an intact 14th-century medieval gauntlet during excavations around Switzerland’s Kyburg Castle—a rare find, given that only five other gauntlets from this period have been found in the region to date. It’s remarkably well-preserved, with many design and decorative details clearly visible. The team also unearthed fragments of the glove’s companion, worn on the opposite hand.

The origins of Kyburg Castle date back to around the late 10th century, with the first mention occurring in 1027 under the name Chuigeburg (translation: “cows-fort”). That suggests it was originally used to house livestock. The Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II destroyed that early fortification sometime between 1028 and 1030, but it was rebuilt and became a possession of the counts of Dillingen. It was partially destroyed again in 1079 as Pope Gregory VII and Henry IV (who would later become Holy Roman Emperor) engaged in a bitter conflict over which of them had the power to install bishops, monastery abbots, and even the pope himself (known as the Investiture Controversy).

That conflict didn’t resolve for a good 50 years, but Kyburg Castle endured, and by the 13th century, the counts of Kyburg (descendants of the Dillingen family) were among the most powerful noble families in the Swiss plateau. Kyburg Castle is one of the largest surviving castles in Switzerland, with its existing core dating back to the 13th century. In addition to the tower and great hall, there are several residential and commercial buildings as well as a chapel, all connected by a ring wall that encloses the courtyard. It has belonged to the Canton of Zurich since 1917 and is currently run by the Verein Museum Schloss Kyburg.

Canton of Zurich

During the winter of 2021 and 2022, the archaeologists were excavating the area just southeast of Kyburg Castle in response to the discovery of a medieval weaving cellar, found during the construction of a new house. The cellar had been destroyed by fire sometime in the 14th century, and the team concluded that a blacksmith likely made use of the cellar, since researchers found about 50 metal objects on site: hammers, keys, and projectile points, in particular. But the intact gauntlet and the fragments of its twin were the most exciting and relevant finds.

The use of hand protection in battle dates back to the late 12th century, when the mail sleeves of knights’ mail vests (hauberks) were extended into something akin to a mitten, designed to be worn over a leather glove and including some mail to protect the fingers. Mail gauntlets with separated fingers appeared in the early 14th century, featuring plates that overlapped around finger and thumb joints, although only the thumb plates were articulated. The design evolved again in the late 14th and early 15th centuries to include more articulated plates attached to mail or leather gloves.

The latter is the style of the newly discovered gauntlet. It’s a right-hand glove with four fingers. The individual plates are stacked like scales and held into place with rivets. Additional rivets on the inside were used to attach the plates to the base material (likely leather), and this in turn was sewn onto a fabric finger glove. This is fairly intricate craftsmanship, judging by the still-visible manufacturing and decorative details.

Kyburg Castle will display a copy of the gauntlet as part of its permanent exhibition, along with a reconstruction of the rest of the armor the owner would have worn along with it. The original will be displayed for three weeks this September. In the meantime, archaeologists will set about learning more about who the gauntlet belonged to and hopefully determine why such finds are so rare. It’s possible that such metal objects were melted down and recycled rather than being preserved, but until more such gauntlets are found, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion.

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Notre Dame cathedral first to use iron reinforcements in 12th century

12 days of Christmas, Archaeology, architecture, forensic archaeology, medieval architecture, notre dame, Science / /

On the twelfth day of Christmas —

Devastating 2019 fire gave scholars access to previously hidden parts of the cathedral.

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View of the chevet of Notre-Dame de Paris under restoration.

Enlarge / The Notre-Dame de Paris has been under restoration since a devastating fire destroyed the main spire and roof in April 2019.

There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2023, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris has been undergoing extensive renovation in the wake of a devastating 2019 fire. Previously hidden portions of its structure have revealed the use of iron reinforcements in the earliest phases of the cathedral’s construction, making it the earliest known building of its type to do so.

On April 15, 2019, the world watched in collective horror as the famed Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames. The magnificent cathedral’s roof and its support structure of 800-year-old oak timbers were destroyed when the main spire—750 tons of oak lined with lead—collapsed in flames, landing on the wooden roof. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rebuild the cathedral, and that work has continued steadily in the ensuing years; the current planned re-opening will occur on December 8, 2024.

If there is a silver lining to the destruction, it’s that the damage has revealed parts of the cathedral’s structure that were previously inaccessible, telling archaeologists and conservationists more about the materials originally used to construct Notre Dame in the mid-12th century. According to a March 2023 paper published in the journal PLoS ONE, the original builders used iron reinforcements during the initial phases, making Notre Dame the earliest building of its type to do so.

“The fire has shed light on certain uses of iron, such as the staples on the top of the upper walls which were totally hidden by the framework,” co-author Maxime L’Héritier of Université Paris told Gizmodo. “We could not have seen them without the blaze or a huge restoration. We believed that [the] great building yards of the 13th century had invented these construction processes using iron armatures, but now it seems that it all occurred at Notre Dame.”

Although no original plans for Notre Dame Cathedral exist, a couple of centuries after Notre Dame’s construction, other building projects left behind documents called building accounts or fabric accounts, which include information like materials purchases and payments to masons. But in the late 12th century, written documents weren’t yet widely used. In the early 1800s, the cathedral was crumbling, and architects Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus received a royal contract to restore the medieval structure. Working with relatively simple tools, Viollet-le-Duc left behind detailed, accurate drawings of the original architecture and his own restoration work.

Two hundred years later, art historian Stephen Murray and the late architectural historian Andrew Tallon of Vassar College carried laser scanners through the entire cathedral, including the space above the vault and several out-of-the-way spiral staircases, passages, and other hidden spaces. As for the cathedral’s much-praised acoustics, a group of French acousticians made detailed measurements of Notre Dame’s “soundscape” a few years before the fire. All of that data has been instrumental in helping architects and conservationists reconstruct the cathedral.

The 2019 fire exposed iron staples in the top walls, inside a column in the nave, and in the tribunes of the choir.

Enlarge / The 2019 fire exposed iron staples in the top walls, inside a column in the nave, and in the tribunes of the choir.

M. L’Heritier et al. 2023

Other medieval French cathedrals built after Notre Dame, such as in Chartres, Bourges, or Reims, all used iron armatures, tie-rods, and chains. But until now, it hasn’t been clear to what extent the original builders of Notre Dame used iron in its construction. Harnessing and scaffolding gave researchers access to the upper parts of the cathedral, although some parts remained inaccessible. Still, L’Héritier et al. found extensive use of iron staples at different levels, with the lowest being two rows of staples in the floors of the second-level tribunes above the arches, as well as in the nave and choir.

Per the authors, some iron reinforcements clearly dated back to reconstruction efforts during the 19th century, most notably iron chains and tie rods in the top walls of the choir and above its upper vaults. The real question was just how old the other iron staples might be. The team mapped and measured all those that were accessible, totaling roughly 170 staples for the upper walls and 100 for the tribunes. They also took samples for the metallographic analysis from iron staples that were already broken or damaged by the fire. The team used a new method for characterizing metal, combined with radiocarbon dating, to determine the age and possible provenance of those samples.

Broken iron staple in the tribunes.

Enlarge / Broken iron staple in the tribunes.

M. L’Heritier et al. 2023

L’Héritier et al. concluded that the iron staples in the floor of the tribunes dated back to the early 1160s, i.e., the earliest phases of construction. “So far, these series of staples are the earliest known example of iron armatures used in the initial design of a Gothic monument,” they wrote, a good 40 years before the iron reinforcements used to build the Chartres or Bourges cathedrals. The staples found at the top of the great lateral walls date to the early 13th century, indicating that the architects of that period also relied on iron reinforcements.

As for the iron itself, the metal analysis showed that the iron alloys used to make the staples were common to the Middle Ages and of similar quality to those found at Chartres, Troyes, and similar cathedrals. What makes the Notre Dame staples unusual is the presence of welding lines, indicating that several pieces of iron of different provenances were welded together to form each staple. Tracking those supply sources could shed light on the iron trade, circulation, and forging in 12th and 13th century Paris.

“Compared to other cathedrals, such as Reims, the structure of Notre Dame in Paris is light and elegant,” Jennifer Feltman of the University of Alabama, who was not involved in the research, told New Scientist. “This study confirms that use of iron made this lighter structure at Paris possible and thus the use of this material was crucial to the design of the first Gothic architect of Notre Dame.”

PLoS ONE, 2023. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280945  (About DOIs).

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ancient-desert-mega-structures-were-planned-using-carved-maps-to-scale

Ancient desert mega-structures were planned using carved maps to scale

12 days of Christmas, anthropology, Archaeology, desert kites, Science, social anthropology / /

On the ninth day of Christmas —

“This calls for the representation of space in a way not seen at this time.”

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Oblique aerial photograph of a desert kite in Jordan

There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: Archaeologists found two stone engravings in Jordan and Saudi Arabia that may represent the oldest architectural plans for desert kites.

During the 1920s, aerial photographs revealed the presence of large kite-shaped stone wall mega-structures in deserts in Asia and the Middle East that most archaeologists believe were used to herd and trap wild animals. More than 6,000 of these “desert kites” have been identified as of 2018, although very few have been excavated. Archaeologists found two stone engravings—one in Jordan, the other in Saudi Arabia—that they believe represent the oldest architectural plans for these desert kites, according to a May paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.

“The discovery of these very ancient representations highlights the question of the methods used by kite builders,” the authors wrote. “Kites are large material structures that could not be designed without what we call today planning. The ability to transpose large spaces into a small two-dimensional surface represents a milestone in intelligent behavior. Such structures are visible as a whole only from the air, yet this calls for the representation of space in a way not seen at this time.”

The eight kites at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh in Jordan were discovered in 2013, and archaeologists began excavations in 2015 and 2016. Looters had targeted one such site, so archaeologists conducted a rescue excavation, noting numerous carved cigar-shaped limestones scattered around the surface. One such stone had a very well-preserved engraving. The engraving’s shape is characteristic of the two desert kites at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh that are nearest to where the engraved rock was found, and the authors estimate the age of the engraving to be about 7,000 years old.

The engraving was likely carved with a lithic tool, employing a combination of fine incisions to mark out the contours of the kite and pecking. The kite-shaped engraving comprises two primary converging curved lines, which the researchers interpreted as representing driving lines. These lead to a carved star-shaped enclosure with eight circular cup marks at the circumference representing pit traps. The characteristics are typical of desert kite structures in southeastern Jordanian kites. The archaeologists remain puzzled by a zigzagging chevron pattern running perpendicular to the corridor, but hypothesize that it might represent a slope break feature.

The kites at Jebel az-Zilliyat in Saudi Arabia were discovered in 2014 and excavated the following year. The engraved sandstone boulder in this case—found during rock art surveys—was studied in situ and dated to around 8,000 years ago. The carving was likely made by pecking the contours using a lithic tool or a handpick. While the eastern engraving on the boulder was very readable, the western one had been badly damaged by erosion. Both feature the same two short, widely spaced driving lines that gradually converge into a star-shaped enclosed surface surrounded by six cup marks (pit traps). Once again, the authors noted clear similarities between the engraved representations of kites on the boulder and actual desert kite shapes nearby.

There have been other maps, plans, or representations in human history, per the authors, such as Upper Paleolithic engravings in Europe that seem to be maps of hunting strategies, or a mural in Turkey from about 6600 BCE that seems to depict a village. There is even a reed-bundle boat found in Kuwait, dated 5000 BCE, that is considered to be the oldest three-dimensional model of a large-scale object. However, the two engravings found in Jordan and Saudi Arabia are unique because they were done to scale: approximately 1: 425 and 1: 175, respectively.

As for why the engravings were made, the authors considered three hypotheses: it was a detailed kite construction plan; it was a plan for preparing hunting activities; or it could be more symbolic—a means of passing on knowledge of the pace and/or its function. Of those, the authors consider the second to be the most credible, given the careful graphical representation of the functional elements of the trap, but cannot rule out the other two possibilities.

“A map would most probably be used here as a means of communication (almost like an ancestral way of writing) and would enable the collective interaction required for the smooth running of hunting operations,” the authors concluded. “These two major innovations, i.e., building what would become the largest structures in human history at that time and making cartographic representations to scale, are closely linked by a common point: mastering the three-dimensional perception of a space, and translating it into an inscribed form of communication.”

PLoS ONE, 2023. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277927  (About DOIs).

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how-archaeologists-reconstructed-the-burning-of-jerusalem-in-586-bce

How archaeologists reconstructed the burning of Jerusalem in 586 BCE

12 days of Christmas, antiquities, Archaeology, biblical archaeology, biblical texts, chemistry, forensic archaeology, Hebrew bible, Science / /

On the seventh day of Christmas —

Hebrew bible is only surviving account of siege that laid waste to Solomon’s Temple.

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How archaeologists reconstructed the burning of Jerusalem in 586 BCE

Assaf Peretz/Israel Antiquities Authority

There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: Archaeologists relied on chemical clues and techniques like FTIR spectroscopy and archaeomagnetic analysis to reconstruct the burning of Jerusalem by Babylonian forces around 586 BCE.

Archaeologists have uncovered new evidence in support of Biblical accounts of the siege and burning of the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians around 586 BCE, according to a September paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The Hebrew bible contains the only account of this momentous event, which included the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. “The Babylonian chronicles from these years were not preserved,” co-author Nitsan Shalom of Tel Aviv University in Israel told New Scientist. According to the biblical account, “There was a violent and complete destruction, the whole city was burned and it stayed completely empty, like the descriptions you see in [the Book of] Lamentations about the city deserted and in complete misery.”

Judah was a vassal kingdom of Babylon during the late 7th century BCE, under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II. This did not sit well with Judah’s king, Jehoiakim, who revolted against the Babylonian king in 601 BCE despite being warned not to do so by the prophet Jeremiah. He stopped paying the required tribute and sided with Egypt when Nebuchadnezzar tried (and failed) to in invade that country.  Jehoiakim died and his son Jeconiah succeeded him when Nebuchadnezzar’s forces besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE. The city was pillaged and Jeconiah surrendered and was deported to Babylon for his trouble, along with a substantial portion of Judah’s population. (The Book of Kings puts the number at 10,000.) His uncle Zedekiah became king of Judah.

Zedekiah also chafed under Babylonian rule and revolted in turn, refusing to pay the required tribute and seeking alliance with the Egyptian pharaoh Hophra. This resulted in a brutal 30-month siege by Nebuchadnezzar’s forces against Judah and its capital, Jerusalem. Eventually the Babylonians prevailed again, breaking through the city walls to conquer Jerusalem. Zedekiah was forced to watch his sons killed and was then blinded, bound, and taken to Babylon as a prisoner. This time Nebuchadnezzar was less merciful and ordered his troops to completely destroy Jerusalem and pull down the wall around 586 BCE.

There is archaeological evidence to support the account of the city being destroyed by fire, along with nearby villages and towns on the western border. Three residential structures were excavated between 1978 and 1982 and found to contain burned wooden beams dating to around 586 BCE. Archaeologists also found ash and burned wooden beams from the same time period when they excavated several structures at the Giv’ati Parking Lot archaeological site, close to the assumed location of Solomon’s Temple. Samples taken from a plaster floor showed exposure to high temperatures of at least 600 degrees Celsius

Aerial view of the excavation site in Jerusalem, at the foot of the Temple Mount

Enlarge / Aerial view of the excavation site in Jerusalem, at the foot of the Temple Mount

Assaf Peretz/Israel Antiquities Authority

However, it wasn’t possible to determine from that evidence whether the fires were intentional or accidental, or where the fire started if it was indeed intentional. For this latest research, Shalom and her colleagues focused on the two-story Building 100 at the Giv’ati Parking Lot site. They used Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy—which measures the absorption of infrared light to determine to what degree a sample had been heated—and archaeomagnetic analysis, which determines whether samples containing magnetic minerals were sufficiently heated to reorient those compounds to a new magnetic north.

The analysis revealed varying degrees of exposure to high-temperature fire in three rooms (designated A, B, and C) on the bottom level of Building 100, with Room C showing the most obvious evidence. This might have been a sign that Room C was the ignition point, but there was no fire path; the burning of Room C appeared to be isolated. Combined with an earlier 2020 study on segments of the second level of the building, the authors concluded that several fires were lit in the building and the fires burned strongest in the upper floors, except for that “intense local fire” in Room C on the first level.

“When a structure burns, heat rises and is concentrated below the ceiling,” the authors wrote. “The walls and roof are therefore heated to higher temperatures than the floor.” The presence of charred beams on the floors suggest this was indeed the case: most of the heat rose to the ceiling, burning the beams until they collapsed to the floors, which otherwise were subjected to radiant heat. But the extent of the debris was likely not caused just by that collapse, suggesting that the Babylonians deliberately went back in and knocked down any remaining walls.

Furthermore, “They targeted the more important, the more famous buildings in the city,” Shalom told New Scientist, rather than destroying everything indiscriminately. “2600 years later, we’re still mourning the temple.”

While they found no evidence of additional fuels that might have served as accelerants, “we may assume the fire was intentionally ignited  due to its widespread presence in all rooms and both stories of the building,” Shalom et al. concluded. “The finds within the rooms indicate there was enough flammable material (vegetal and wooden items and construction material) to make additional fuel unnecessary. The widespread presence of charred remains suggests a deliberate destruction by fire…. [T]he spread of the fire and the rapid collapse of the building indicate that the destroyers invested great efforts to completely demolish the building and take it out of use.”

DOI: Journal of Archaeological Science, 2023. 10.1016/j.jas.2023.105823  (About DOIs).

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