Archeology Exam

King Tut

ca. 1330 BC.

Found by Howard Carter in the Valley of Kings in Egypt

• Tomb was heavily looted

• funeral mask is iconic piece of art.

Otzi the Ice Man

ca. 3200 BC. Murder victim found in Italian Alps preserved perfectly from the ice.

• discovered 1991 by hikers

• North African sandstorm led to his preservation

• found with all his belongings

• modern tech determined his COD.

Royal Death Pits of Ur

• ca. 2550 BC

-found in Iraq in 1920s-1930s

• 16 royal pits found at site.

• found by Leonard Wooley and Max Mallowan

• found layers and layers of bodies (sacrificial attendants) that reached the top of the pit.

• see Queen Pu'abi's Tomb

Ice Princess

• ca. 5th century BC

• found in Siberia

• heavily tattooed

• buried and preserved by the permafrost.

• found in 1993

Heinrich Schliemann

German Archaeologist who found Troy. Active in late 1800s.

Infamous for his horrible excavation of Troy, digging straight through to Troy II, in search of what he thought was Homer's Troy, now believed to be Troy VI or Troy VII

Book of Death

An Egyptian scroll with all the answers to the test presumably asked in order to ascend to the afterlife.

• everyone is buried with it

• written on papyrus.

• associated with the metaphorical weighing of the heart.

Canopic Jars

Jars used to store internal organs after being removed for the mummification process.

liver - human shaped

jackal - stomach + upper intenstines

falcon - lower intestines

baboon - lungs

Rosetta Stone

ca. 196 BC. A inscription on a stone written in 2 languages (3 writing conventions)

• Hieroglyphics (Egyptian)

• Greek

• Hieratic (Egyptian)

deciphered by Jean Francois Champollion

found in Rosetta hence the name

Narmer's Palette

ca. 3300-2200 BC

Shows the unification of Egypt

Has Mesopotamian motifs showing connection between nations.

Pyramids of Giza

ca. 2700 - 2500 BC

• one dynasty

• grandfather, father, son

-Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure

• Khafre built the Sphinx in front of his second pyramid.

-public work project

-big target for graverobbers

Lindow Man

• bog dude

• ca. 50-100 AD in England

• murder victim/sacrifice

• found in 1984

• preserved in a bog with hair, nails etc still intact

• missing bottom half due to being cut by mechanical drill.

Tollund Man

• another bog dude

• ca. 4th century BC

• found in Denmark, 1950

• preserved everything including his hair and hat.

• rope preserved from when he was hanged.

• COD: hanging but not known why.

Ice Maiden

ca. 15th century AD

• found in Peru in 1995

• 12-14 yrs old sacrifice by Inca

• found by John Reinhart

• frozen in ice.

Alexander the Great Mosaic

• found in the House of the Faun in 1831.

• depicts one of Alexander the Great's battles.

• ca. 120 - 100 BC

• shows people of the time had interest in antiquity.

Pompeii Casts + Dog

• created by Guiseppe Fiorelli in 1860

• eruption in 79 AD.

• due to the ash settling around the bodies, plaster casts were able to be created, depicting the moment when the victims of Pompeii died.

• visceral posing

• because the remains were incased in plaster, the bones and other remains are inaccessible.

Priam's Treasure

ca. ~2400 BC

• found in Troy II by Heinrich Schliemann in 1873

• Famous picture of his wife Sophia wearing the jewels.

• Smuggled out of Turkey to Germany where it was exchanged for a temporary doctorate for Schliemann.

Queen Pu'abi's Tomb

ca. 2550 BC

• her tomb connected to her king's tomb through a tiny tunnel, suspected to be the entrance for looters.

• Royal Standard of Ur

• buried with all her jewelry, headdresses, earrings

• husband was buried with his gold helmet and dagger.

• Ram in a Thicket (gold + lapis)

• lapis suggested some sort of trading with other groups

Royal Standard of Ur

• ca. 2500 BC

• found in Queen Pu'abi's tomb

• found broken apart but was placed back together

• assumed it was a standard brought to war

• Instead was a box that depicted a battle, the presentation to the king and the celebratory feast.

Herculaneum

• another city hit by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD

• had more warning than Pompeii, no victims found there

• victims at a neighboring port town, killed by superheated blast of air.

• covered by volcanic ash, perfectly preserved

Balks

• created in 1930s

• apart of the Kenyon-Wheeler Method

• the side wall of an excavated section where one can look at the stratigraphy of the site.

Kenyon-Wheeler method

Method originally coined by Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s where he would dig in grids with sections of the site left to act as lines for the grid. Those lines created walls (balks) that allowed for the examination of the stratigraphy of the area. Kathleen Kenyon refined the technique in the 1950s and spread it to more archaeologists.

Mortimer Wheeler

• active during the 1920s-1930s

• creator of the Wheeler (later the Kenyon-Wheeler Method) of excavation.

• see Kenyon-Wheeler Method.