Ten Fascinating Discoveries in Near Eastern and Mediterranean Archaeology in 2024
december 2024 | Vol. 12.12
By Jessica Nitschke
Another year done and dusted! We’ve been sharing news stories about archaeological breakthroughs and discoveries all year. In case you missed any, here are some of the highlights (in no particular order).
1. Breakthrough in Radiocarbon Dating Leads to First Absolute Chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem
From Regev et al, PNAS 2024, fig. 6. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2321024121
A team from the Weizmann Institute made a breakthrough in radiocarbon dating, with significant implications for our understanding of Jerusalem in the Iron Age. Working from 100 radiocarbon measurements of organic material from secure contexts, researchers were able to overcome the Hallstatt plateau, a phenomenon which previously made radiocarbon dating inaccurate during the 8th-5th centuries BCE. For the first time, they were able to create an absolute chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem, showing that the city was far larger and denser earlier than previously thought.
Read more on the Weizmann Institute site
Read the full study here (PNAS)
2. Egyptian Scribes Developed Osteoarthritis From Working Too Much
Drawing indicating the most affected regions of the skeletons of scribes. Drawing by Jolana Malátková. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-63549-z
Researchers from the National Museum in Prague analyzed the skeletons of 69 men buried at a necropolis in Abusir, Egypt, dated to between 2700 BC and 2180 BC. Thirty of these were scribes, whose skeletons showed more degenerative joint changes indicative of osteoarthritis than non-scribes, in locations in their bodies that correspond to their sitting positions while carrying out their work.
3. Analysis of Mesopotamian Royal Portrait Reveals the Beginnings of Lost-wax Casting Technique
Three views of the Head of a Mesopotamian ruler, ca. 2300-2000 BCE. Credit: Anna-Marie Kellen / The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The term “lost-wax technique” often brings to mind Greek or Roman bronze statues, but Mesopotamians were using this method for their sculpture thousands of years earlier. A new study has revealed more detail about the development of the technique. A team from the Metropolitan Museum of Art used high-energy X-rays to do an in-depth technical examination of a bronze head dated to ca 2200 BCE from Mesopotamia (perhaps of ruler Rimush I of Akkad), revealing insights into the early development of hollow casting technology for life-size sculpture.
Read the full study here (Heritage Science)
4. A Rare, Eleventh-century Islamic Astrolabe with Both Arabic and Hebrew Discovered in Museum Collection
The Verona Astrolabe. Photo by Federica Gigante.
Dr. Federica Gigante from Cambridge University identified a rare (and beautiful) 11th-century Islamic astrolabe that had gone unnoticed in the collection of the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo in Verona, Italy. Astrolabes were astronomical devices used to calculate distances and plot the position of the stars. Originally from Andalusia, this astrolabe is covered in Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions as well as western numerals. To quote Dr. Gigante, the object is “a powerful record of scientific exchange between Arabs, Jews, and Christians over hundreds of years.”
Read more here (University of Cambridge)
5. Oldest Wine in Liquid Form Discovered in Funerary Urn in Spain
Wine in a glass urn from a tomb in Carmona. Image by Juan Manuel Román
A team from the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cordoba analyzed some liquid inside a glass funerary urn that held the skeletal remains of an unknown man in a Roman-era tomb in Carmona. They determined that the liquid substance was in fact white wine — the earliest surviving wine in liquid form! Mineral salts in the liquid are consistent with white wines currently produced in the region, especially Montilla-Moriles wines.
Read the full study here (Journal of Archaeological Science)
6. Discovery of a Large-Scale Early Farming Society at Oued Beht (Morocco)
Aerial photo of the site area. T Wilkinson/OBAP Archive
The Oued Beht Archaeological Project in Morocco published their multidisciplinary research revealing the earliest and most extensive agricultural settlement in North Africa outside of the Nile Valley, dated to 3400 – 2900 BCE. With artifacts pointing to connections between the Maghreb and wider Mediterranean much earlier than previously recognized, their work is likely to transform our understanding about the development of agriculture in North Africa and the Mediterranean.
Read more at The Conversation
Read the full study here (Antiquity)
7. DNA Analysis Provides Surprising Insights into Ancient Pompeians
Group of casts from the House of the Golden Bracelet. Casts no. 50-51-52, date of creation 1974. Credit: Parco Archeologico di Pompei
Researchers from the University of Florence, Harvard University, and Max Planck Institute in Leipzig extracted DNA from skeletal remains found in the famous Pompeian casts, which were made from the voids in the ash layer left behind by residents who perished in the lava flows. Their analysis not only changed earlier interpretations of the individuals’ relationships, it also showed that Pompeians derived their ancestry from recent immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean.
Read the full study here (Current Biology)
8. One of the World’s Oldest Churches Uncovered at Artaxata, Armenia
This digital reconstruction of the Armenian church’s now-degraded walls shows its original shape. © Armenian-German Artaxata Project
Researchers from the University of Münster and the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia have excavated the oldest known Christian church in Armenia and one of the oldest in the world, dated to ca. 350 CE via radiocarbon dating. Armenia became the first Christian state after its ruler, Tiridates III, was converted to the faith by Gregory the Illuminator in 301 CE. The building is octagonal shaped and stretches ca. 30 m in diameter, and was decorated by material imported from the Mediterranean.
Read more here (Smithsonian Magazine)
9. Hallucinogens Detected Inside a Bes Mug.
Drinking vessel in shape of Bes head, El-Fayūm Oasis, Egypt. Image Courtesy of the Tampa Museum of Art.
Researchers at the University of South Florida in collaboration with teams from University of Trieste and University of Milan investigated the organic residue of a tiny Bes mug (a ritual vessel in the shape of the Egyptian god Bes) held by the Tampa Museum of Art. They found traces of wild rue, Egyptian lotus, and a plant belonging to the cleome family, offering tantalizing clues into the use of psychotropic substances in ancient Egyptian ritual. The vessel has been dated to the 2nd century BCE.
Read the full study here (Scientific Reports)
10. The Phoenician Shipwreck Mazarrón II was Recovered Off the Coast of Murcia.
Extraction works of the Phoenician ship Mazarron 2. Credit: Universitat de València.
Following years of planning, a specialized team from the University of Valencia successfully raised the Mazarrón II, a Phoenician shipwreck dated to the 7th century BCE. Discovered in 1994, the Mazarrón II is the most complete Phoenician shipwreck ever found. The team, which included collaborators from a number of different institutions in Spain, used a variety of cutting edge technologies in order to preserve the wreck (which was threatened by changes in the marine environment), including polyethylene resin molds for protecting the individual pieces during extraction.
Watch the video here (in Spanish)
Honorable Mention:
This isn’t really a new discovery, nor newly published, but it is receiving considerably more attention this year than in the past, in part due to a new presentation of data at the 2024 ASOR Annual Meeting: evidence of the earliest known examples of alphabetic writing, from Umm el-Marra, Syria. Read about the history of this discovery here (Times of Israel).
Think our list is incomplete? Did we overlook something? Add your favorite discovery or breakthrough in the comments below!
Jessica Nitschke is Editor of The Ancient Near East Today and a Research Fellow at Stellenbosch University.
How to cite this article:
Nitschke, J. 2024. “Ten Fascinating Discoveries in Near Eastern and Mediterranean Archaeology in 2024.” The Ancient Near East Today 12.12. Accessed at: https://anetoday.org/ten-discoveries-2024/.
Want to learn more?
Ten Exciting Discoveries in Near Eastern Archaeology in 2023
Eliot Braun
The lost wax method of casting is known from the Late Chalcolithic period dated to ca the end of the 5th millennium. Many of the objects from the Nahal Mishmar hoard were made by that method.
The results of the DNA test results from the Pompei inhabitants needs qualification. It indicates that some recent were recent immigrants.