Archaeologists unearth military arsenal from the era of Ivan the Terrible

An archaeological expedition from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, while conducting a rescue excavation dig near Zvenigorod (Moscow Region) involving the new Central Circular Highway, has unearthed the private arsenal of a military commander from the era of Ivan the Terrible.

The location of the find was formerly the 16th-century village of Ignatievskoe, once the homeland of the famous Boyar family of the Dobrynins. A member of this family once figured amongst Ivan the Terrible's "hand-picked thousand "—the top brass of the notorious Tsar's army, an elite officer group formed in October 1550. A royal edict ordered that the cities of Dmitrov, Zvenigorod and Ruza should be "brought to heel" by a specially formed unit of "the best officers, sons of Boyars." The "hand-picked thousand" became the new elite officer corps of the Russian army.

The remains of around 60 village buildings were uncovered during the dig. On the western side of the former village, archaeologists unearthed a building with a very large underground timber-lined storehouse, uncovering the remains of a large private arsenal. They found helmets stored in leather boxes, kolchugs (a kind of cuirass), sections of military sabres, belts, and arrows and more. It seems possible that this was a cache of weapons for a military expedition, stored in special boxes, including even sections of camp tents and billy cans. This warlike inventory, along with the status of its owner, probably indicated the existence of a standing army of troops in readiness, who were armed, billeted and fed at the cost of members of the nobility as part of their responsibility as courtiers.

"We've never encountered such finds in Moscow region before, neither in cities and especially not in small villages. If this rescue archaeology dig hadn't been undertaken, all this material would have been completely destroyed during the building of the Central Circular Highway," said the deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Asya Engovatova.

The highlight of the items so far uncovered are spiked helmets, practically undamaged by rust. "They are the typical military headgear of Russian knights—spherical helmets adorned with gold and silver. Similar helmets are on display in the Kremlin Armoury Museum, the Hermitage Museum, and the State History Museum," said Alexei Alexeyev, the scientific specialist in charge of the excavations. Alexeyev said that these finds are unique, since they were found along with their leather storage boxes, textile in-linings, and richly-decorated ear-pieces.

"We've never encountered such finds in Moscow region before, neither in cities and especially not in small villages. If this rescue archaeology dig hadn't been undertaken, all this material would have been completely destroyed during the building of the Central Circular Highway," said the deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Asya Engovatova.

The highlight of the items so far uncovered are spiked helmets, practically undamaged by rust.

"They are the typical military headgear of Russian knights—spherical helmets adorned with gold and silver. Similar helmets are on display in the Kremlin Armoury Museum, the Hermitage Museum, and the State History Museum," said Alexei Alexeyev, the scientific specialist in charge of the excavations. Alexeyev said that these finds are unique, since they were found along with their leather storage boxes, textile in-linings, and richly-decorated ear-pieces.

This arsenal can't be described as a horde or treasure trove in the normal sense—it wasn't deliberately hidden. As far as we can see, it was simply in storage in the basement of a boyar's mansion in the mid-16th century, when the house burned down in a fire. This means these weapons were never used in battle during the Time of Troubles interregnum, and thus they were preserved to be found again now.
_________________
Reference:

Phys.org. 2016. “Archaeologists unearth military arsenal from the era of Ivan the Terrible”. Phys.org. Posted: January 1, 2016. Available online: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-archaeologists-unearth-military-arsenal-era.html

10,000-Year-Old Remains of Extinct Woolly Rhino Baby Discovered

The remains of a baby woolly rhino that roamed the Earth at least 10,000 years ago have been discovered in a frozen riverbank in Siberia, researchers said.

The rhino calf, nicknamed "Sasha" after the hunter and businessman who found it, is the only complete young specimen of the extinct species ever found, according to scientists at the Yakutian Academy of Sciences in Russia, to whom the creature was donated for study.

The researchers hope to extract DNA from the specimen to determine its placement on the mammal family tree.

"The newly found [calf] is about 1.5 meters long [4.9 feet] and 0.8 meters high [2.6 feet]," said study researcher Albert Protopopov, head of the mammoth fauna studies department of the Yakutian Academy of Sciences in Russia, as translated by Olga Potapova, the collections curator and manager at the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota. By contrast, adults of this species could reach up to 15 feet (4.5 m) long and 6 feet (1.9 m) high at the shoulders, Protopopov said.

A rare find

Since the 18th century, the remains of only a few adult woolly rhinos have been discovered. Two complete bodies without hair were found in Staruni in what is now Ukraine, and a headless, frozen mummy was found in eastern Siberia, Potapova said. Woolly rhinos were depicted in late Paleolithic cave paintings in Western Europe, which add to scientists' knowledge of what the animals looked like, she added.

But the remains of rhino calves are very rare and fragmented, and little to nothing is known about the young animals, Protopopov told Live Science, via Potapova. Woolly rhinos likely had very high infant mortality — "that’s why [Sasha] is a very lucky find for us," he said.  

The new remains are from a very young rhino, probably between 3 and 4 years old, said fellow researcher Evgeny Maschenko, of the Paleontological Institute in Moscow, as translated by Potapova.

"The young rhino mummy was covered by thick hair" and had two fist-size horns that were tightly attached to its skull, Maschenko said. Based on the size of its horns, Sasha had probably already been weaned from its mother, but it's not clear whether the calf was a male or female, he added.

Woolly rhinoceroses (Coelodonta antiquitatis) first appeared some 350,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch, which lasted from 2.59 million to 11,700 years ago. The animals fed on mostly low-growing herbaceous vegetation, and were widely found in the mammoth steppe, a vast cold and dry region spanning from Spain in the west to eastern Siberia in the east, and from subarctic latitudes in the north to the Mediterranean, southern Siberia and northern China in the south.

To extinction … and back?

Woolly rhinos lived at the same time as, and shared a habitat with,woolly mammoths, but the two species are not related. The woolly mammoth is a cousin of the modern Asian elephant, whereas the woolly rhino is most closely related to the modern rhino, Potapova said.

Woolly rhinos went extinct about 10,000 years ago. Some scientists believe overhunting was the cause, but the more likely culprit is climate change, which caused the disappearance of the animals' food sources and habitat, researchers said. Unlike other large mammals of the time — such as woolly mammoths, steppe bison, cave lions and native horses — woolly rhinos may not have been able to cross the land bridge now occupied by the Bering Strait, because they were unable to adapt to the tundra climate, the researchers said.

If the researchers can obtain DNA from Sasha, they plan to sequence the animal's genome. This would allow scientists to identify the rhino's closest relatives, and determine whether there were one or two species of woolly rhino in the Late Pleistocene, Protopopov said.

There's been a lot of buzz among scientists lately that it might be possible to bring extinct animals "back to life" by cloning their DNA and breeding them in a related, living animal, a process called de-extinction. Some scientists have suggested using this technique to bring back the woolly mammoth, but could it also be used to revive the woolly rhino?

Currently, it seems too complicated, Protopopov said. Traditional cloning methods won't work for this purpose, he said, because even if his team can reconstruct the complete genome of the rhino specimen, there is no close modern relative with which to perform crossbreeding.

Besides, Maschenko said, even if humans could bring these creatures back from extinction, "should we proceed?"
_________________
Reference:

Lewis, Tanya. 2015. “10,000-Year-Old Remains of Extinct Woolly Rhino Baby Discovered”. Live Science. Posted: Mrch 11, 2015. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/50100-baby-woolly-rhino-discovered.html

Extraordinary kurgan burial shines new light on Sarmatian life

A Sarmatian burial mound excavated this summer in Russia’s Southern Ural steppes has yielded a magnificent but unusual treasure.

The artefacts contained within the mound are helping to shed light on a little-known period of the nomadic culture that flourished on the Eurasian steppe in the 1st millennium BC.

The archaeological study of this remarkable ancient tomb, or kurgan, was carried out by the expedition of the Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy of Sciences), led by Professor Leonid T. Yablonsky.

No written language

The nomadic peoples had no written language therefore scientists can only learn about their cultures and traditions through archaeological data.

The kurgans which are scattered across the steppes contain many Scythian and Sarmatian relics and while the nomads successfully interacted with the Persian Achaemenid and Greek civilizations, they still preserved a unique culture of their own.

Completing the study of an extraordinary monument

This year archaeologists excavated the eastern part of Mound 1 at Filippovka 1 kurgan in the Orenburg region. This section was approximately 5m high and 50m long and was left unexplored by the previous expedition more than 20 years ago. The aim was to complete the study of this extraordinary monument, which had already famously entered the annals of world culture with the discovery of 26 “golden” deer statuettes.

Another major challenge for the archaeologists was to ensure the preservation of this unique cultural heritage which faces a large number of imminent threats with robbery being a major problem.

Massive cast bronze cauldron

An underground passage near the entrance was the first area of exploration this season. A massive cast bronze cauldron with a diameter of 102 cm was discovered there. Its handles were fashioned in the traditions of the Scythian-Siberian animal style with an image of two griffins, beak to beak.

Burial chamber

Under the eastern mound an undisturbed burial chamber was discovered measuring approximately 4x5m and 4m deep. At the bottom of the chamber several stratified layers of debris were excavated to reveal exceptionally rich and varied grave goods accompanying a human skeleton. The material associated with the burial seemed to belong to a woman as it contained what is regarded as representing typically female artefacts and jewellery. However, initial osteological examination of the skeletal morphology revealed the occupant of the burial to be male; though DNA-analysis is still to be carried out.

Grave goods

A small wicker chest that is thought to be a vanity case was found near the skull. It was filled to the brim with items including a cast silver container with a lid, a gold pectoral, a wooden box, cages, glass, silver and earthenware bathroom flasks, leather pouches, and horse teeth that contained red pigments.

Nearby lay a large silver mirror with gilded stylized animals on the handle and embossed decoration on the back with the image of an eagle in the centre, surrounded by a procession of six winged bulls.

The garments were decorated with several plaques, depicting flowers, rosettes and a panther leaping on a saiga’s (antelope) back. There were also 395 pressed pieces of gold leaf sewn onto the breeches, shirt and scarf. A fringed shawl was held together with a golden chain and the sleeves of the shirt were embellished with multicoloured beads, forming a complex geometric pattern. Two cast gold earrings decorated in places with cloisonné enamel were found in the area of the temporal bones.

Tattooing equipment

The archaeologists also uncovered equipment used in the art of tattooing, including two stone mixing palettes and iron, gold covered needles, as well as bone spoons used to blend paints and pens decorated with animals.

More than one thousand artefacts were recovered from the tomb and they constitute an invaluable research resource that will add to the growing corpus of data that is shedding light on the history of the Eurasian continent.

This excavation represents a major breakthrough in the study of the mysterious Sarmatian culture of the Early Iron Age.
__________________________
References:

Yabionsky, Leonid T. 2013. “Extraordinary kurgan burial shines new light on Sarmatian life”. Past Horizons. Posted: September 17, 2013. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/09/2013/extraordinary-kurgan-burial-shines-new-light-on-sarmatian-life