NEW: A “masterpiece of ancient Egyptian art” is so detailed researchers have been able to pinpoint the bird species in it. These images of the natural world helped create a space for relaxation and recreation in a palace.

Check out this twitcher #AntiquityThread 1/14 Section of the wall painting, depicting a kingfisher.
📌 The artwork was discovered at Amarna, the location of the capital city of Pharaoh Akhenaten (1347–1332 BC). Excavations in 1924 uncovered a palace belonging to Meritaten, daughter of the pharaoh and Nefertiti. 2/14

📷: The palace today by Olaf Tausch / CC BY 3.0
🐦 The palace features several lavishly decorated rooms. One of these, the ‘Green Room’, has a rare depiction of birds in a wild papyrus marsh with no signs of human activity. 3/14

📷: Part of the marsh scene
🗨️ “They have since come to be regarded as masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art,” said Dr Christopher Stimpson and Professor Barry Kemp, “Featured in these paintings are some of the most skilfully rendered and naturalistic images of birds known from Dynastic Egypt.” 4/14
Despite the quality of these images, they have received relatively little attention. As such, not all the bird species in the art had been identified in the nearly 100 years since it was found. 5/14
🗨️ “The art of the Green Room has not received as much attention as you would perhaps expect. This may have been because the original plaster panels did not survive well,” said Dr Stimpson. Early attempts at conserving the painting accidentally damaged it. 6/14
🔎 So Dr Stimpson and Professor Kemp set out to identify the birds of the Green Room. The pair consulted modern ornithological data and a high-quality copy of the artwork made in 1924 by Nina de Garis Davies to identify the birds. 7/14

📷: Nina de Garis Davies' copy
✅ They were ultimately able to identify several species, including shrikes & wagtails. These join the kingfishers and pigeons previously identified. They also found migrant birds are annotated, perhaps indicating a seasonal element to the art. 8/14

📷: Shrike and wagtail
🪶 The artwork also may show an ancient Egyptian pigeon problem. Rock pigeons are depicted but are not native to the papyrus marshes. Perhaps, like in modern cities, pigeons were attracted to the area by human activity. 9/14

📷: Rock pigeons
Whilst this can't be ruled out, the researchers think the artists instead included these birds to make the scene seem wilder and untamed – an atmosphere the realistic artwork appears designed to create. 10/14

📷: Atmosphere
The team suggests these images of the natural world have made the Green Room a relaxing place. 11/14
🗨️ “No one knows for sure, although the Green Room was most likely a place of rest and relaxation. Illustrations in rock tombs at Amarna possibly show similar settings where women relax, socialise and play music,” said Dr Stimpson, an honorary associate of @morethanadodo 12/14
“In the Green Room, the atmosphere was likely enhanced by the visions of nature. The calming effects of the natural world were as important then, as they are (more than ever) today.” 13/14
Check out the full paper FREE:
Pigeons and papyrus at Amarna: the birds of the Green Room revisited - Christopher M. Stimpson & Barry J. Kemp
doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2…
14/14
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More from @AntiquityJ

Dec 13
NEW: Archaeologists have identified two early churches in the Kingdom of Aksum, a major ancient power in Northeastern Africa. They are some of the first churches reliably dated to shortly after the Aksumite’s conversion to Christianity.

Here's an #AntiquityThread 1/15 🧵 Excavations at the cathedra...
🌍 The Aksumite Kingdom ruled much of the northern Horn of Africa in the first millennium AD, stretching from Ethiopia to Arabia, and was an important contemporary of the Roman Empire. 2/15

📷: Extent of the Kingdom of Aksum by Aldan-2 / CC BY-SA 4.0 Image
✝️ Like their Meditternean neighbour, the Aksumite leader – King Ezana – converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD but securely dated churches from this period are rare. 3/15

📷: Coin of King Ezana by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc / CC BY-SA 3.0 Image
Read 15 tweets
Dec 8
NEW: Archaeologists have discovered what may be the earliest known narrative scene, telling an ancient story, at the 11,000-year-old site of Sayburç in south-eastern Turkey.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on the new research 1/14 🧵 A panel from the art, depicting a human figure flanked by le
The two panels depict people interacting with dangerous animals. In one, a human grasps their penis whilst leopards approach from either side. In the other panel, a squatting male holding a rattle or snake faces a bull. 2/14

📸: The panels
🐆 The teeth of the leopards and horns of the bull are emphasised, highlighting the danger in the scenes. 3/14
Read 14 tweets
Dec 7
Check out this mega-thread of all the threads we did on some of the great archaeology research from the latest issue of Antiquity.

For starters, researchers have been documenting Indigenous art on boab trees in Australia before it disappears 👇
Snails helped archaeologists pinpoint when a town was destroyed
Snails crop up in some other research - as a food that helped hunter-gatherers survive a climate shift
Read 6 tweets
Dec 7
Good King Wenceslas (yes, the one from the carols) was murdered by his brother in AD 935.

📷 Wenceslas trying to escape his brother. Medieval artwork depicting ...
A mass grave of up to 60 further victims was found at Budeč hillfort (🇨🇿), providing archaeological evidence of this event and making this a #HillfortsWednesday

Warning: There will be some pictures of the grave coming up
Budeč hillfort is said to be where Wenceslas had his early education. It was a stronghold built by his family to cement their power in the 9th century.

📷: Budeč, where the mass grave was found just outside the walls of the fort (red arrow). Image
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Dec 6
⛏ Today is #MinersDay!

This giant cavern was created by Bronze Age miners extracting huge quantities of copper ore from Great Orme (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿) over 3,500 years ago! A large cavern at Great Orm...
For 200 years, Bronze Age miners extracted a copper bonanza from the Great Orme Mines. It supplied large parts of Britain, and metal from the mine even found its way as far as Germany and Sweden.

📷: Where the metal went Image
After this copper boom, the mine was abandoned for millennia until it was rediscovered in 1987.

📷: The mine today Image
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Nov 23
NEW: Neanderthal and early modern human chefs used cooking tricks to make their meals more palatable, analysis of the oldest charred food remains ever found has revealed.

Strap in for a delicious #AntiquityThread 1/14 🧵 A Neanderthal hearth from Shanidar Cave. A layer of charred
🥬 Dr @CerenArkbotani and a team of archaeologists wanted to explore the role of plants in the diet of Palaeolithic humans and Neanderthals. Previous research has often focused on the importance of meat in the diet of ancient hunter-gatherers, especially Neanderthals. 2/14
🔬 To investigate this, the team used a scanning electron microscope to analyse ancient charred food on the micrometre scale. The samples came from early modern human and Neanderthal occupations at Shanidar Cave, Iraq, and Franchthi Cave, Greece. 3/14

📷: Location of the sites
Read 14 tweets

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