Thread: In 1936, two brothers were ploughing a vineyard on the Vinik hill near Niš in South Eastern Serbia. Then suddenly their plough hit a stone. When the brothers started digging around the stone they realised that the stone was a part of a stone wall...
It turned out that they had stumbled upon a Roman building, which judging by the thinness of the wall was of a temporary character. Which is quite interesting because what was in the building...
A row of pithoi lined the walls. And these were full of leather bags, which were full of Roman coins. According to the witnesses, almost 10 tons of Roman coins. The single biggest hoard of Roman coins ever found...
The coins were Roman denarii minted between the first and the third century AD. Judging by the state of the coins, they were either used very little or never used. They were packed in separate bags based on the Emperor who minted them and the year when they were minted...
Based on this it is believed that the two lucky brothers had discovered either a provincial treasury or a military treasury...The fact that apart from coins, the building also contained the moulds for minting coins, confirms this...
The coins were minted from almost pure silver and the hoard contained a lot of rare example never seen before...And judging by the weight, the treasury must have contained over 3 million coins...
I say must have, because no one knows how many coins were actually dug out of the vineyard...The news about the discovery spread quickly. The brothers only reported a "small" amount of coins. Around hundred kilos...The rest was, according to the local informers, hidden...
Many big world museums, like Louvre, Metropolitan, Berlin museum, British museum...sent their teams to buy coins from the lucky Serbian villagers. And they, not knowing what they have found, sold the coins as "broken silver". Per kilo...
A very small part ended up in Serbian museums. The Niš museum bough 17 kilos and Belgrade museum bought 37 kilos. Believe or not, apparently these coins are still sitting in bags, still not processed or catalogued...(report from 2014)...
Thread: A lyre player from "The Standard of Ur" (), a Sumerian artefact found in one of the largest royal tombs in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, associated with Ur-Pabilsag, a king who died around 2550 BC. Now in the British Museum... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_…
These instruments were not ordinary instruments. They were ceremonial instruments. This is obvious from the fact that the Sumerian sign for lyre also means "to praise." But praise who?
Thread: Marble Throne of Apollo, Roman, late 1st c. AD. Currently in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Whoever made this, knew who Apollo really was and wanted to show Apollo in his true shape (serpent, dragon), sitting on his throne. Let me explain: collections.lacma.org/node/230211
Official description of the throne: "Despite its elaborate decoration, the artfully decorated legs terminating in lion's paw feet...[this throne] could hardly have been sat upon..."
Of course. Apollo is already depicted sitting on it. In a shape of a serpent/dragon...
"...A snake weaves its way in and out of an archer's bow, below which is a quiver full of arrows...The bow and quiver are associated with the god Apollo and the snake might refer to the fearful serpent Python, guardian of the oracle at Delphi, which Apollo slew in his youth..."
Thread: Etruscan gold disc fibula, from the Necropolis of Ponte Sodo, Vulci, Etruria, Italy. 650 BC, from the "Orientalizing period". Currently in the Antikensammlungen, Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
WTH is all this stuff depicted on it? Here is the official description:
"Around a central cross, above, are several birds in flight and, at the sides, two lions with a pendent tongue and serpentine tail; in the centre, two helmeted warriors, with short sword and shield, fight surrounded by a bird respectively." That's it?
Thread: "Motanka", elaborately decorated but always faceless cloth doll was once a common feature in every Ukrainian peasant home. These dolls weren't just toys. They were magic talismans...
The name "motanka" comes from the word "motaty" (to wind) ie to make a knotted doll out of fabric, without using a needle and scissors. The winding of the doll was to be carried out only clockwise...
The fact that the doll had to be wound clockwise (sunwise) is very important as this direction was by our ancestors considered "positive, natural" and the opposite direction was considered "negative, unnatural"...
Two Assyrian soldiers forcing Elamite captive to grind bones of his family, 7th - 6th c. BC. This wasn't like most people think an act of random cruelty...Making someone destroy the bones of their ancestors was a deliberate forced act of sacrilege...
Assyrian culture, like all the other Mesopotamian cultures, was built around the cult of the dead. Assyrians, often buried their dead under house floors. They also practiced "kispu", regular, ritual feeding and watering of the deceased after their burial...
Based on this, in the Petra M. Creamer concludes that "Socially, this indicates deep linkages to familial practices and ancestral memory".asor.org/anetoday/2024/…