THE ANTIKYTHERA WRECK: A NUMISMATIC APPROACH

The paper examines the coins found inside the Antikythera wreck. The wreck of Antikythera was discovered by chance by some sponge fishermen in October 1900, in the northern part of the island of Antikythera. The archaeological excavation of the wreck has allowed the recovery of many finds in marble and bronze, with acquisitions of human skeletons related to the crew of the sunken ship, in addition to the famous “Antikythera mechanism”. Various proposals have been made for the chronology of the shipwreck, as well as the port of departure of the ship, which have been based on literary sources or on the chronology of ceramic finds. As far as coins are concerned, it should be remembered that thirty-six silver coins and some forty bronze coins were recovered in 1976, all corroded and covered by encrustations. The separate study of the two classes of materials, those Aegean and those Sicilian allows to deepen the history of the ship shipwrecked to Antikythera. The treasury of silver coinage is composed of thirty-six silver cistophoric tetradrachms, 32 of which are attributable to the mint of Pergamon and 4 to that of Ephesus. From the chronological point of view, the coins minted in Pergamon have been attributed by scholars to the years from 104/98 B.C. to 76/67 B.C., the date that marks the end of the coinage until 59 B.C. The coins of Ephesus are easier to date because they report the year of issue, even if, in the specimens found, the only legible refers to the year 53, corresponding to our 77/76 B.C., if it is assumed as the beginning of the era of Ephesus its elevation to the capital of the province of Asia in 129 B.C., or 82/81 B.C., if we consider 134/133 B.C., the year of the creation of the Provincia Asiana. As for the three legible bronzes, we note that there are a specimen of Cnidus and two of Ephesus. The coin of the city of Caria was dated by scholars in the second half of the third century B.C. The two bronzes of Ephesus are dated almost unanimously around the middle of the first century B.C., although this fundamental data was never considered for the dating of the shipwreck. The remaining three legible bronzes from Asian mints, two from the Katane mint and one from the Panormos mint, belong to a completely different geographical context, such as Sicily, with its own circulation of coins. The two coins of Katane show a typology with a right-facing head of Dionysus with ivy crown, while on the reverse we find the figures of the Pii Fratres of Katane, Amphinomos and Anapias, with their parents on their shoulders. The specimen of Panormos has on the front the graduated head of Zeus turned to the left, and on the verse the standing figure of a warrior with whole panoply, in the act of offering a libation, with on the left the monogram of the name of the mint. As regards the series of Katane, usually dated to the second century B.C., it should be noted, as, moreover, had already noticed Michael Crawford, that there is an extraordinary similarity between the reverse of these bronzes and that of the issuance of silver denarii in the name of Sextus Pompey, that have on the front the head of the general, facing right, and towards the two brothers from Katane on the sides of a figure of Neptune with an aplustre in his right hand, and the foot resting on the bow of the ship, dated around 40 B.C., during the course of the Bellum siculum. We wonder how it is possible to justify the presence in a wreck of the half of the first century B.C. of two specimens of a very rare series of one hundred and fifty years before, but well known to the engravers of the coins of Sextus Pompey. The only possible answer is that Katane coins have been minted more recently than scholars have established. For the coin series of Panormos, then, it must be kept in mind that there are three different variants of the same type of reverse, for which it is not possible to indicate a relative chronology. In one coin issue, the legend of the ethnic is written in Greek characters all around the warrior; in another coin we have a monogram that can be easily dissolved as an abbreviation of the name of the city of Panormos; in the third, in addition to the same monogram, we find the legend CATO, written in Latin characters. In our opinion, this legend must necessarily refer to the presence in Sicily of Marcus Porcius Cato of Utica, with the charge of propraetor in the year 49 B.C. Drawing the necessary consequences from the in-depth analysis, the data of the Sicilian coins seem to attest to their production towards the middle of the first century B.C., in line with what is obtained from the ceramic material found inside the shipwrecked ship, and from the dating of the coins of Ephesus. The study of numismatic materials and a proposal of more precise dating allows to offer a new chronological data for the sinking of the ship. The presence of rare bronze coins of Sicilian mints suggests that the ship came from a port on the island, most likely from that of Katane.

Potters in Transition

For many years, the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition in the southern Levant has been the subject of intense debates concerning chronological matters and cultural developments. Ceramic studies were often the focal point of the discussion, but they usually concentrated on the appearance of Aegean-style pottery in the southern Coastal Plain and the nearby Shephelah, while largely disregarding the indigenous pottery tradition. In this paper, I study the processes of continuity and change in ceramic shape morphology and decoration techniques of three important tell-sites in the Shephelah: Lachish, ʿAzẹqȧ (Tel Azekah) and Ekron. It will be shown that marked innovations took place during the transition to the Iron I. These were most likely triggered by the appearance of foreign potters who produced local Aegean-style wares and seem to have influenced the traditions of the indigenous ceramic workshops. Such insights not only allow a fine-tuning of the relative chronology of the region at the end of the second millennium BCE, but also illuminate the transmission of professional knowledge and cultural traits through the ages.

The grand platform of Huangchengtai at Shimao site in Shenmu, Shaanxi

Remains of the grand platform in the locus of Huangchengtai at Shimao site in Shenmu, Shaanxi was discovered and excavated during the 2018–2019 season. The south-eastern corner and southern buttress of the platform were revealed. The locations of the other three sides of the buttresses were also preliminarily confirmed. As many as 70 stone carvings were discovered from multiple contexts, including the surface of the southern buttress, the floor of the corridor, as well as the debris of the southern buttress inside the corridor. The relative chronology of this platform and stone carvings cannot be later than the late Longshan period. The absolute date ranges from 2000 BCE to 1800 BCE. Fieldwork performed at the grand platform encourages multiple archaeological discussions, including the settlement layout within the Huangchengtai area, the nature of the settlement, and its role as the core of the Shimao site.

New scientific data of materials from the Starshy Nikitinsky burial ground and its place in the chronology of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture

The paper is devoted to the introduction of a new radiocarbon date into scientific circulation and the analysis of the results of determining the metal composition of the items of the Starshy Nikitinsky burial ground of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture. The overwhelming majority of the burial grounds decorations are made of pure copper. One pendant ornament is made of silver; in two other items the content of silver and arsenic was noted in small quantities. Products made of pure copper are usually associated with the Volga-Ural sources of metal, traditional for the Middle Volga Abashevo culture. The appearance of silver and arsenic in the metal composition of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture is associated with the South Ural ore sources and their development by the Volga-Ural Abashevites. Within the framework of traditional relative chronology, this corresponds to the time of the end of the developed stage of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture. The preservation of organic materials, which is rare for the sites of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture, makes it possible to compare the results obtained only with the materials of the Pepkino burial mound. Speaking of metal composition, both sites belong to a single stage of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture. The radiocarbon dates of the two burial grounds obtained at the Oxford Laboratory are close and indicate a somewhat later age of the burials of the Starshy Nikitinsky burial ground relative to the burials of the Pepkino kurgan.

Combining relative chronology and AMS 14C dating to contextualize ‘megasites’, serial migrations and diachronic expressions of material culture in the Western Tripolye culture, Ukraine

Scholarship regarding the Eneolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex of Romania, Moldova and Ukraine has recently focused on ‘megasites’ of the Western Tripolye culture (WTC) in Central Ukraine. However, in order to properly contextualize such unusual phenomena, we must explore the broader typo-chronology of the WTC, which is suggestive of a high degree of mobility and technological transfer between regions. We report 28 new AMS 14C dates from sites representing diagnostic types and propose a high-resolution chronological sequence for the WTC’s development. Our results support the relative chronology and offer an opportunity to propose a new chronological synthesis for the WTC.

Old Japanese Post-Nasal Non-Back Close Vowels in a Comparative Perspective

In this paper I will be comparing Old Japanese non-back close vowels /i/ (i1 or kō-rui) and /ɨ/ (i2 or otsu-rui) in a post-nasal position with their North and South Ryukyuan cognates in order to propose Proto-Japonic reconstructions of Old Japanese [+ nasal] [+ high, -back] sequences. The paper establishes and analyzes six correspondence sets, each representing a different Proto-Japonic sequence: *mi, *muj, *me, *ni, *noj, *nuj, and briefly discusses a couple of yet different relevant Proto-Japonic reconstructions. The study is concluded with a proposal of relative chronology of the discussed changes from Proto-Japonic to Proto-Ryukyuan. A reconstruction of Proto-Ryukyuan *ɨ, a sixth segment added to Thorpe’s 1983 classical five-vowel set, is argued for as a necessary development of post-nasal *oj and *uj. This is interpreted within the context of chain-shifting processes dating to Proto-Japonic as an important catalyst of mid-vowel raising in Proto-Ryukyuan.

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S AND NICOLAUS STENO’S GEOLOGY

Anniversaries for the two founding fathers of geology occurring in the same year prompted a comparative evaluation of how the two contributed to establishing the basic principles of the discipline. To do so, passages from their publications, codices and manuscripts have been quoted directly. The Stenonian principles (‘original horizontality’, ‘original continuity’, and ‘superposition of individual strata’) are present in Leonardo’s notebooks amazingly formulated, using similar wording when studying the same area more than 150 years earlier. Also, Stenonian priority in naming and explaining geological concepts and processes (e.g., faulting, folding, angular unconformity, relative chronology) are mirrored in Leonardo’s writings and pictorial works. While Steno enjoys priority in stepwise restoration of the geological history of a given region, Leonardo was the first to construct a 3D geological profile representation and geomorphologic maps. Lastly, the paper focuses on diverging stances of the two savants about the Noachian Deluge and the age of the Earth. Already 500 years ago, Leonardo had solved the question of marine fossil remains of organic origin found in the mountains implying the possibility of deep geologic time in a statement of ‘eternalism’. 350 years ago, Steno solved the same question in a different way in which he retained a basic role for the Deluge and assumed a short age for the Earth by focusing mainly on short-lived sedimentary and geomorphologic processes.

What about Dinner? Chemical and Microresidue Analysis Reveals the Function of Late Neolithic Ceramic Pans

The Late Neolithic palafitte site, Ustie na Drim, in the northern part of Lake Ohrid (North Macedonia), excavated in 1962, offered ceramic fragments of large, flat, elongated pans. These artifacts could be dated by relative chronology to roughly around 5200–5000 BC. According to their shape and technological traits, the ceramic pans were probably used for baking. The attached materials on the surface of studied pan fragments were sampled for consequent chemical and microscopical analyses (i.e., analyses of starch, phytoliths, and microscopic animal remains). An immunological method revealed the presence of pork proteins in samples. The presence of organic residues of animal origin was, moreover, confirmed by the detection of cholesterol using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Analysis of detected microscopic botanical objects revealed starch grains of several plants (i.e., oak, cattail, and grasses). An interesting find was the hair of a beetle larva, which could be interpreted contextually as the khapra beetle, a pest of grain and flour. Based on our data, we suppose that the ceramic pans from Ustie na Drim were used for the preparation of meals containing meat from common livestock in combination with cereals and wild plants.