British Museum set to return ancient Greek statue looted from Libya

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 12, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Heritage, Libya, North Africa, UK

London’s British Museum is set to return a looted ancient Greek statue of the goddess Persephone to Libya which is estimated to be worth £1.5m.

Statue of Persephone dating from 3rd century BC to be returned from the UK to Libya [Credit: Middle East Eye]

According to Al-Wasat newspaper, Mohammed al-Kouni, the Libyan charge d’affaires, visited the British Museum along with his delegation on Thursday to see the artefact and make arrangements for its return.

Libya's cultural heritage has been under threat from looting in the turbulent years that have followed the 2011 uprising against longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.

The ancient Greek statue currently in the British Museum's possession was taken from a world heritage site in Shahhat in 2012.

The piece was illegally excavated from a grave in the ruins of Cyrene, an important Hellenic city located in the north of what is now Libya, and then subsequently smuggled into the United Kingdom.

The four-foot marble relic is of a hooded woman believed to be a representation of the queen of the underworld, Persephone.

The statue dates from the third or fourth century BC, and Dr Peter Higgs, a curator of Greek sculpture at the British Museum, described it as “one of the best examples of its type and … extremely rare”.

A 2015 ruling by Judge John Zani ruled that the statue, which was in the possession of Jordanian national Riad al-Qassas, had been “misdeclared” on arrival to the UK as border officials believed it was worth £72,000 and originally Turkish.

The artefact was discovered in a west London warehouse by customs officials, before being handed to the British Museum as the court ruled on its ownership.

Qassas was ordered to pay £50,000 costs in the 2015 ruling. Meanwhile, a claim from Emirati businessman Hassan Fazeli that the statue had been in his family since 1977 was waved away.

The return is part of a drive by the Libyan Antiquities Authority to repatriate stolen goods, a process that can take many years to see fruition.

There are currently five UNESCO world heritage sites in Libya that are classified by the United Nations as endangered: Ghadames, Cyrene, Tadrart Acacus, Leptis Magna and Sabratha.

Though the North African country boasts several archaelological sites and centuries of cultural history, some regions of Libya have not yet archived or documented many of their excavated artefacts.

This has left it difficult to assess how many ancient artefacts have been looted since 2011, though it is estimated that some 8,000 ancient coins and small artefacts have been lost.

In early October, the United States returned a Libyan statue known as the “Head of a Veiled Woman” following an 11-year investigation.

Author: Haneen Shlebak | Source: Middle East Eye [November 12, 2019]

Over 130 Roman inscriptions uncovered at ancient site of Mustis in northern Tunisia

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 07, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, North Africa, Tunisia

Over 130 Roman inscriptions and a fascinating tale of a city’s evolution have been uncovered by Polish archaeologists in the ancient site of Mustis, in northern Tunisia.

The Latin text describes the founding of temples and other public buildings, names inscribed on tombstones and other everyday matters of the bustling city’s inhabitants, telling the story of what was important enough for them, to record it in stone [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The team from Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, in cooperation with Tunisian National Heritage Institute finished their work a month ago and are now publishing their findings.

Mustis, or Musti, was an ancient metropolis with rural suburbs covering the area of over 34 ha. It was established by Numidian tribes, which formed an ancient kingdom conquered by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC. A Roman colony was founded there, probably for the army veterans commanded by the famous general Gaius Marius.

Mustis was an ancient metropolis with rural suburbs covering the area of over 34 ha [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The Numidian settlement bloomed into a Roman metropolis with numerous public structures such as temples dedicated to Pluto, Apollo and Ceres, Triumph Arcs, thermae, villas built for the most prominent citizens and later on even an early medieval Christian basilica. Ruins of the buildings stand tall until today.

Professor Tomasz Waliszewski, who leads the mission, told PAP: "Our epigraphic team has already inventoried over 130 Latin inscriptions from Roman times, and there are many more.”

Mission leader Professor Tomasz Waliszewski said: 'The richness of these inscriptions can also be seen in numbers - we estimate that there are over 500 Latin inscriptions in the Mustis area and nearby - it's really a lot, even for Africa Proconsularis' [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The Latin text describes the founding of temples and other public buildings, names inscribed on tombstones and other everyday matters of the bustling city’s inhabitants, telling the story of what was important enough for them, to record it in stone.

"The richness of these inscriptions can also be seen in numbers - we estimate that there are over 500 Latin inscriptions in the Mustis area and nearby - it's really a lot, even for Africa Proconsularis,” added Waliszewski.

The team from Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, in cooperation with Tunisian National Heritage Institute finished their work a month ago and are now publishing their findings [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province which covered today’s Tunisia and partially Libya. The region was highly urbanized, with trade routes running from Carthage to Theveste in today's Algeria.

Apart from its significance in terms of communication and transport, the region was very fertile – grain, olive and vines were cultivated there, leading to a rapid enrichment from 1st to 3rd century AD. Similar to other Roman outposts in Africa, Mustis, located 120 km from Carhage, suffered a crisis due to Vandal invasion and rule Vandals (5th - 6th century).

Musti or Mustis was an ancient city and bishopric in the Roman province of Proconsular Africa, now in northern Tunisia [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The last excavated objects found in the city come from 12th century, which is suspected to be the end of its decline, though exact history remains unknown. Apart from the numerous Latin inscriptions, the excavations shed new life on the Roman urbanization of the region.

The settlers from Italia, rather than build their own cities, lived together with the local populace, building their structures over the already existing ones, leading to a mingling of cultures with Roman as the dominant one.

The last excavated objects found in the city come from 12th century, which is suspected to be the end of its decline, though exact history remains unknown [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

"Roman remains were simply too spectacular compared to the poor Numidian homes. Perhaps, moreover, we are also wrong and new research will show that the Numidian culture of pre-Roman Africa was much richer, drawing inspiration from the surrounding Punic and Greek world, " wonders Prof. Waliszewski.

The ruins of Mustis were popular with travellers from the late nineteenth century, however only limited reconstruction and archaeological work has been done there. Three temples and a city gate were partially rebuilt, while the inscriptions point to the presence of eleven temples.

Geomagnetic studies near the Arch of Gordian III in Mustis[Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

Epigraphic studies of local Latin inscriptions allowed the researchers to learn more about the city’s history.

Author: Joanna Jasinka | Source: The First News [November 07, 2019]

Genetic imprint of Palaeolithic detected in North African populations

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 06, 2019 / comment : 0 Anthropology, Early Humans, Genetics, North Africa

An international team of scientists has for the first time performed an analysis of the complete genome of the population of North Africa. They have identified a small genetic imprint of the inhabitants of the region in Palaeolithic times, thus ruling out the theory that recent migrations from other regions completely erased the genetic traces of ancient North Africans. The study was led by David Comas, principal investigator at UPF and at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) and it has been published in the journal Current Biology.

Representation of the North African samples that have been used for this study [Credit: UPF]

The field of genomics has evolved greatly in recent years. DNA sequencing is increasingly affordable and there are major projects studying genomes at population level. However, some human populations like those of North Africa have been systematically ignored. This is the first genomic study to contextualize this region of the world.

The origin and history of the population of North Africa are different from the rest of the continent and are more similar to the demographic history of regions outside Africa: the Middle East, Europe or Asia. Palaeontological remains exist that prove the existence of humans in the region more than 300,000 years ago. In any case, previous genetic studies had shown that current populations of North Africa originated as a result of a Back to Africa process, that is, recent migrations from the Middle East that populated northern Africa.

Hence, the debate that arises is one of continuity versus replacement. On the one hand, the continuity hypothesis posits that current North African populations descend from Palaeolithic groups, i.e., that such ancient humans are the ancestors of present human populations. Meanwhile, other hypotheses argue that the populations that existed in Palaeolithic times were replaced, and that the humans that currently inhabit North Africa are the result of recent migrations that arrived there as of the Neolithic.

In this study, the researchers compared genetic data from current North African individuals with data recently published on the DNA of fossil remains found at different sites in Morocco. "We see that the current populations of North Africa are the result of this replacement but we detect small traces of this continuity from Palaeolithic times, i.e., total replacement did not take place in the populations of North Africa", reveals David Comas, full professor of Biological Anthropology at the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) at UPF. "We do not know whether the first settlers 300,000 years ago are their ancestors, but we do detect imprints of this continuity at least since Palaeolithic times, since 15,000 years ago or more", he adds.

"We have seen that the genetic imprint of Palaeolithic populations of North Africa is unique to the current North African populations and is decreasingly distributed from west to east in the region, inversely proportionally to the Neolithic component coming from the Middle East, which had a greater effect on the eastern region, which is geographically closer", says Gerard Serra-Vidal, first author of the article.

"Therefore, our results confirm that migrations from other regions such as Europe, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa to this area did not completely erase the genetic traces of the ancient North Africans", explains David Comas, head of the Human Genome Diversity research group of the IBE.

These results of the populations of North Africa are in contrast with what is known about the European continent, in whose current populations a strong Palaeolithic component is found, i.e., more continuity and less replacement than in North Africa.

Many genomic data are still missing, both of current populations and of fossil remains, to be able to establish the population history of the human species. "This is or particular concern in populations such as those of North Africa about which we have very little information compared to other populations in the world. In order to have a complete picture of human genome diversity still have to do a considerable amount of research", David Comas concludes.

Source:Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona [November 06, 2019]

Libya retrieves stolen bust from the US

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 02, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Heritage, Libya, North Africa

The US Department of Homeland Security is to return to the Libyan authorities the head of an archaeological marble statue that was smuggled illegally to the United States, the Libyan Foreign Ministry said.

Credit: The Libya Observer

"The step comes in implementation of the memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries at the beginning of 2018 on the imposition of import restrictions on antiquities, cultural, and historical property of Libya," the Foreign Ministry explained.

The Director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jamal Barq, clarified that the head will be handed over to the Libyan Embassy in Washington, to be later returned to its historical location in Libya.

Source: The Libya Observer [October 02, 2019]

New evidence of the Sahara's age

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on September 23, 2019 / comment : 0 Canary Islands, Climate Change, Earth Science, Geology, North Africa, Palaeoclimate, Palaeontology

The Sahara Desert is vast, generously dusty, and surprisingly shy about its age. New research looking into what appears to be dust that the Sahara blew over to the Canary Islands is providing the first direct evidence from dry land that the age of the Sahara matches that found in deep-sea sediments: at least 4.6 million years old.

Desert dust from Africa is transported west to the Canary Islands and the CapeVerde Islands every year. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image of "Calima" (dust storm) event on 8 March 2006, taken from the Terra satellite [Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA/GSFC]

"People have been trying to figure it out for several decades," said Daniel Muhs, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. "More recent studies said it was the beginning of the Pleistocene (about 2.6 million years ago). Then others say a few thousand years ago." Added to this is a model suggesting the Sahara Desert first appeared as far back as seven million years ago.

There is also other evidence that the desert has taken breaks and had wetter, greener periods interspersed with arid times. It's this sensitivity to climate -- and the Sahara's role in global climate -- that makes the region so interesting to researchers.

The new work by Muhs and his colleagues in the Canary Islands focused on thick layers of fine reddish-brown soil found among layers of volcanic rocks and dune sands on Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria islands. The islands are off the west coast of North Africa, at the mouth of a spigot that seasonally pours windblown dust off of the Sahara and across the Atlantic Ocean. Muhs presented the results at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Phoenix, Arizona.

A paleosol on the island of Gran Canaria, sandwiched between basalt flows dated to 3.0-2.9 million years ago - to the Pliocene [Credit: Daniel Muhs]

Muhs's and his colleagues' mission was to find, identify, and date any layers of ancient African dust in what are called paleosols, or buried, ancient soils. In one coastal location studied, they found layers of dunes made from local shells of sea animals; in another, there were layers of lava from the volcanoes that built the islands. Both of these geologic archives contained paleosols made of very fine-grained minerals rich in quartz and mica--minerals that do not reflect the local geology of the islands. They do, however, reflect the minerals found on the nearby African mainland.

Luckily for the geologists, the lava flows that sandwich the windblown fine-grained quartz and mica layers made it possible to nail down approximate ages of the Saharan dust. This is because volcanic rocks contain minerals with what are essentially isotopic clocks that start ticking when the minerals in the lava cool and solidify. And since the layers of lava, paleosols, and other local soils are stacked chronologically with the youngest on top, the lava flows provide some boundaries of when the Sahara was dry enough to launch massive dusty storms out over the Atlantic.

In all, the researchers report eight paleosols that record African dust piling up in the Canaries between about 4.8 and 2.8 million years ago, 3.0 to 2.9 million years ago, and at about 400,000 years ago. The oldest paleosols agree with the deep-sea cores, which put the earliest Sahara dust to the Atlantic at about 4.6 million years ago.

View from the ground on the Canary Islands on 8 March 2006, when the Calima arrived [Credit: Daniel Muhs]

That's not to say the Sahara is 4.6-million-years-old. That's only as old as Muhs and his colleagues could determine based on the paleosols and lavas they found.

"We could take it further back in time if we can find the paleosols," Muhs said.

Source: Geological Society of America [September 23, 2019]

Archaeologists shed light on Neolithic culture in Egypt's Western Desert

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 06, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Egypt, Near East, North Africa

Very little is known about Neolithic Egypt, the precursor to the subsequent civilisation of Pyramids and Pharaohs we all know today. The often-inaccessible sites conceal their mysteries, lying beneath the Nile’s former flood plain or in outlying deserts.

Neolithic skull unearthed at Gebel Ramlah [Credit: Czekaj-Zastawny et al. 2018]

An international group of scientists has reported the discovery of burial sites that date back to an ancient culture that existed in the Libyan desert and enabled the rise of ancient Egypt, publishing some of their findings in the African Archaeological Review.

While many of us tend to associate pre-Hellenic Egypt exclusively with the pharaohs and pyramids of the Dynastic period, there was a Neolithic civilisation that predated it.

Excavation site at Gebel Ramlah [Credit: Czekaj-Zastawny et al. 2018]

Members of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition, with permission from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), studied burial sites focusing on the Final Neolithic (4,600-4,000 BC), which was built on the success of the Late Neolithic (5,500-4,650 BC) and lying along the former shores of an extinct seasonal lake near a place called Gebel Ramlah.

In “Gebel Ramlah—a Unique Newborns’ Cemetery of the Neolithic Sahara”, the researchers offer important insights into the mysterious ways of life of the ancient peoples. At that time, the climate in the desert was more humid than today, which allowed ancient farmers to populate the area. This culture was characterised by the cultivation of livestock and the creation of megalithic structures, shrines and even calendar circles resembling Stonehenge.

Well preserved vs. wind-eroded remains at Gebel Ramlah [Credit: Czekaj-Zastawny et al. 2018]

During the final part of the Neolithic period, people started burying their dead in formal cemeteries. The skeletons provide telltale information about their health, relationships, diet and even psychological experiences.

In 2001-2003 the archaeologists excavated three cemeteries from this era, uncovering and studying 68 skeletons and the artefacts left in the graves: elaborate cosmetic tools for women, stone weapons for men, as well as ornamental pottery, sea shells, stone and ostrich eggshell jewellery. Researchers found that these people had a low level infant mortality, high growth, and a relatively long life expectancy (40-50 years).

Grave goods from 2001-2003 excavations at Gebel Ramlah [Credit: Czekaj-Zastawny et al. 2018]

In 2009-2016, two more cemeteries were discovered with 130 skeletons and a small number of artefacts. According to the results of the analysis, these people were short, there was a high degree of infant mortality and they had a short life expectancy.

Pondering the reasons for the tremendous differences in the burial sites, researchers came up with a number of theories. It's possible that some sites were intended for people of high social status, while others were for the working class. This could be the earliest evidence of class stratification in Egypt, claim the experts.

Map of the cemetery for newborns at Gebel Ramlah [Credit: K. Juszczyk and J. Kabacinski]

These indicators, taken together with the innovative technological and ceremonial architecture, such as the calendar circles and shrines, imply that these people showed a level of sophistication beyond that of common cattle and sheep/goat herders.

The fascinating finds can be viewed as a precursor of things to come in Ancient Egypt.

Author: Svetlana Ekimenko | Source: Sputnik News [August 06, 2019]

Spain and Algeria collaborate in the study of the first human occupation in North Africa

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 05, 2019 / comment : 0 Algeria, Archaeology, Early Humans, North Africa

Scientists from el Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana (CENIEH) (Burgos, Spain) and from the Algerian Centre de Recherches Prehistoriques, Anthropologiques et Historiques (CNRPAH) (Algiers, Algeria) have collaborated in a new round of fieldwork in July 2019 at the site of Ain Hanech in northeastern Algeria to investigate the Tempo and Mode of the earliest human occupation in North Africa.

Excavations at Ain Boucherit [Credit: CENIEH]

As explained by Dr. Mohamed Sahnouni, Research Professor and Coordinator of the Archaeology Program of the CENIEH, leading the research at Ain Hanech since 1992, the 2019 fieldwork has been very successful, allowing the project scientists to collect pertinent data to further investigate early hominid evolution and behavior in North Africa between 2.4 and 1.7 Ma in connection with their surrounding ecology.

Ain Hanech currently preserves the evidence of the oldest archaeological occurrences in North Africa and consists of Plio-Pleistocene archaeo-palaeontological localities with hundred meters of sedimentary deposits yielding savanna-like fossil fauna associated with Oldowan (Mode I) stone tools ranging between 2.4 and 1.7 million years ago.

The 2019 fieldwork focused on expanding the excavation at the localities of Ain Boucherit Upper-Level (dated to 1.92 Ma) and El-Kherba (dated to 1.7 Ma), sampling for sedimentological and micromorphological studies at the locality of Ain Hanech (dated to 1.7 Ma), as well as searching Acheulean tools that replaced the Oldowan ones.

Oldowan tool [Credit: M. Sahnouni]

At Ain Boucherit, the excavation has been expanded southward, yielding Oldowan artifacts associated with animal fossil bones, some of which are intentionally modified by early hominids, including cutmarked and hammer-stone percussed bone specimens.

Similarly, El-Kherba yielded further Oldowan stone tools associated with fossil bones of hippo, rhino, equids, bovids, and carnivores. The objective of sediment sampling at Ain Hanech is to study in depth the mode of accumulation of the remains and to reconstruct the paleoenvironment of the site.

"Regarding the Acheulean, we were able to discover numerous tools (Mode II) from the calcrete deposits that seal the Ain Boucherit-Ain Hanech stratigraphic sequence. In the next phase of our research, we will investigate the dating of the Ain Hanech Acheulean occurrences in order to document how early the Acheulean occupation replaced the Oldowan in North Africa," says Dr. Mohamed Sahnouni.

Source: CENIEH [August 05, 2019]

Excavations commence at Morocco's Dar El Baroud site

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 04, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Morocco, North Africa

Morocco’s Ministry of Culture has launched the second phase of archaeological excavations at “Dar El Baroud,” an ancient pottery district in Sale, not far from the capital Rabat.

Credit: MAP Archives

The excavations have revealed “the major importance of the site in terms of history, archaeology, and art,” said the ministry in a statement.

Credit: MAP Archives

The archaeological works have uncovered a complete artisanal district dedicated to the pottery dating from the 12th to the 14th century. The site includes 40 pottery ovens, several artisan workshops, and various types of ceramics.

Credit: MAP Archives

The work on the site and artifacts found significantly boost scientific research on Islamic archaeology and ceramics both in Morocco and in the wider Islamic West, according to the statement.


As a result, the ministry is working on setting up a center dedicated to the site, in order to promote Sale’s history and heritage.

Author: Juliette Owen-Jones | Source: Morocco World News [August 04, 2019]