2,000-Year-Old Remains of Horse Killed by Pompeii Volcano Found in Tomb Raider Tunnel

Ancient Origins

Donkeys, pigs, and dogs have all been found amongst the ruins of Pompeii, but the remains of a carbonized horse are the first example archaeologists have come across of that animal. While the discovery is great, the way it was found is unsettling. T

he Local.it reports the horse was found in a stable, complete with a trough, beside a large Roman villa. Unfortunately, archaeologists were not the first to make the discovery – tomb raiders are responsible for unearthing the horse. Nonetheless, Massimo Osanna, the director of the Pompeii site, calls the horse an "extraordinary" find.

Authorities found the looters had dug a 60 meter (196.85 ft.) long network of tunnels under the villa, to search for frescoes and other precious artifacts. Laser scanners show the tunnels measure just 60 cm (23.62 inches) wide, according to Independent.ie. Steps have been taken to find the looters and archaeologists have begun excavating the area properly to try to avoid further destruction.

Traces of an iron and bronze harness were located beside the horse’s head, which archaeologists believe suggests the animal was probably a parade horse that was specially bred to fulfill that action and very expensive. The Telegraph mentions there is also the possibility that the animal was a prized racing horse.

The remains of the horse were uncovered by looters. (Antonio Ferrara and Riccardo Siano )

 The recently discovered horse measures 150 centimeters (59.06 inches) tall at the withers, somewhat short if compared to a modern horse, but experts say it would have been a rather large adult horse in ancient Pompeii. It was carbonized following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and no skeleton or flesh remains on its body. However, the form has been preserved through a technique which experts have been using to preserve casts of Pompeii’s human victims . The procedure involves injecting the empty body cavity with liquid plaster.

The Local.it says this is the first time archaeologists have found the complete outline of a horse at Pompeii. Experts were able to distinguish it as a horse, as opposed to a donkey, because of the left ear imprint which marks the ground under the animal’s head.

The imprint of the horse's left ear. ( Parco Archeologico di Pompei )

 A tomb dating to a later period was also found at the villa. It contained a man who died when he was 40-55 years old and Osanna says , "It shows that even after the eruption, people continued to live and to farm in Pompeii, on top of the layer of ash which destroyed the city." Amphora shards, fragments of kitchen utensils, and part of a wooden bed were also found during excavations.

This is the second major discovery to be reported from Pompeii in the last few weeks. On April 25, Osanna announced that archaeologists had found the skeleton of a child who died during Vesuvius’ eruption . The seven or eight-year-old sought shelter from the volcanic ash, gas, and pumice by crouching inside a public thermal bath.

The child’s skeleton was found in a crouching position in the bath complex of the town. ( Parco Archeologico de Pompeii )

 Top Image: The remains of an ancient Roman horse have been found in Pompeii. Source: Parco Archeologico di Pompei

 By Alicia McDermott

Skeleton Found in Pompeii Belonged to Child Seeking Shelter from Deadly Volcanic Eruption

Ancient Origins

Among the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii, archaeological excavations have revealed the skeleton of a child who died in a volcanic eruption. Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and destroyed the city of Pompeii, a busy port, along with neighbouring Herculaneum. For many centuries the city lay under the earth, forgotten, near the bustling city of Naples. However, since the eighteenth century it has been extensively excavated and is now a massive archaeological site. Skeletons have been preserved in the ash and debris of Pompeii, and many have been recovered by archaeologists over the years. Pompeii's director Massimo Osanna announced the discovery of the child’s skeleton on the 25th of April.

The child skeleton was found in crouching position in the bath complex of the town. Image: Parco Archeologico de Pompeii

A Child in Hiding
The child is estimated to have been seven or eight years old and was discovered in a crouching position. The skeleton was found in the public thermal bath complex, which was one of the most important public buildings in Pompeii. It is speculated that the child died here while seeking shelter from the volcanic ash, gas, and pumice. The skeleton is relatively intact, and this would suggest that the child was killed by the flow of hot ash and gas that descended upon Pompeii. Those who did not flee the volcanic ash cloud would have perished.

It is estimated that some 10% of Pompeii’s population died, approximately 2000 men, women and children. The majority of them, like the child whose skeleton has been discovered, died either as a result of the pyroclastic flows or they were suffocated by poisonous ash. A pyroclastic flow is a current of hot gas and volcanic matter that is emitted by an erupting volcano and that moves at a great speed. They are often impossible to escape by foot.

The remans of the child were found in one of the baths of the bath complex. Image: Parco Archeologico de Pompeii

Analysis of the Scene
It appears that the pyroclastic flow that swept down from Vesuvius and descended upon Pompeii after the eruption is what has preserved the remains of the child. It is theorized that the flow of hot gas and ash flooded through the windows and doors into the bath complex. The ash and gas flow buried the child, and this solidified over the body when rain fell, encasing the young victim. The skeleton had been sealed in the bath by the pyroclastic flow, according to the American publication Archaeology. This allowed the skeleton to remain undisturbed for millennia.

Maintenance Work Prompted the Find
The find was made during a sweep of the bath complex by a team of archaeologists using the latest scanning equipment, a videoscope. The archaeologists surveyed the area with the equipment as efforts were being made to prevent the ruined walls of the thermal bath from falling. The new technology enabled the archaeological team to investigate areas of the sprawling site that had not been investigated in many decades. With the aid of the videoscope they were able to detect something unusual beneath the surface and this persuaded them to dig in the baths. The thermal baths of the ruined city had, it was believed, already been excavated and the discovery of the skeleton was a surprise to the archaeologists. According to Phys.org, there is speculation that the skeleton had been previously found in the nineteenth century. This was based on the fact that the leg bones appeared to have been placed next to the body, presumably by a person. However, for some reason they had not been removed or even recorded.

Pompeii Director, Massimo Osanna and a colleague inspect the find. Image: Parco Archeologico de Pompeii

A Rare Find for Pompeii
The skeleton was unearthed in February, but the discovery was not publicized at the time, which is standard practice with such finds. It is the first complete skeleton uncovered in two decades and the first child’s skeleton to be uncovered in fifty years. The remains of the child have been removed to a laboratory in Naples for further investigation. The skeleton will undergo a series of extensive tests by an interdisciplinary team of experts. It is hoped that the tests will allow the sex of the child to be established by analysis of its DNA. There will also be tests that seek to determine the age of the child and its general health. The fact that this is the first child to be discovered in fifty years means that experts can now learn more about the lives of the children of Pompeii. The team examining the remains are using the latest technology to discover as much as possible about the skeleton and also what it can tell about life in Pompeii before its fiery destruction.

 Top image: The child skeleton recently discovered at Pompeii. Source: Parco Archeologico de Pompeii

By Ed Whelan

Volcanic Eruptions and Climate Change Incited Upheaval in Ancient Egypt - and Historians Warn of Repetition

Ancient Origins

The Nile river was the lifeblood of ancient Egypt. When the waterway flooded nearby lands things were good, but a lack of that precious water caused serious issues. Now, historians have found that the famous waterway could have been negatively impacted at key moments in the Ptolemaic period – inciting social, political, and economic upheavals. Most surprisingly, it seems that the lack of Nile flooding could have been set off by volcanic eruptions altering the climate.

 The results of research on the link between the climatic impact in ancient Egypt by volcanoes was recently published in Nature Communications. In the paper, the authors explain that “Explosive eruptions can perturb climate by injecting sulfurous gases into the stratosphere; these gases react to form reflective sulfate aerosols that remain aloft in decreasing concentrations for approximately one to two years.” Through a chain of events, those sulfurous gases cool the atmosphere, and if that takes place in the Northern Hemisphere, monsoon rains may not move as far as they usually do.

Merapi volcano, eruption at night. (1865) Raden Saleh. (Public Domain)

Francis Ludlow, a climate historian at Trinity College in Dublin and a co-author of the study, explained to EurekAlert! how those climatic events impacted the Nile River, “When the monsoon rains don't move far enough north, you don't have as much rain falling over Ethiopia. And that's what feeds the summer flood of the Nile in Egypt that was so critical to agriculture.”

Burial chamber of Sennedjem, Scene: Plowing farmer. (Public Domain)

Science Alert reports that the researchers have linked at least three major events in ancient Egypt’s declining years to volcanic eruptions and the subsequent suppression of the Nile. An eruption in 245 BC has been used as a partial explanation for Ptolemy III's exit from the area now Syria and Iraq, as the Roman historian Justinus wrote, if Ptolemy III “had not been recalled to Egypt by disturbances at home, [he] would have made himself master of all Seleucus's dominions.”

The 20-year Theban revolt (starting in 207 BC) has been connected to another volcanic eruption. And finally, eruptions during the reign of Cleopatra VII in 46 and 44 BC led to serious famines and the release of state-reserved grain. This may have been the so-called “straw that broke the camel’s back” – climatic, social, political, and economic upheaval combined and brought down the famous ancient Egyptian civilization.

Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners by Alexandre Cabanel (1887). (Public Domain)

Ludlow says that the connection between the eruptions, Nile failure, and problematic events in Egypt are “highly unlikely to have occurred by chance, such is the level of overlap.”

The historians determined the impact of the eruptions on the Nile and Egyptian society by examining a monument known as al-Miqyas, or the Nilometer, which has preserved a record of the Nile's summer peaks since the early 7th century. They combined that data with events prior to that time by piecing together information from previous research providing a timeline of major volcanic eruptions around the world and historical records

Measuring shaft of the Nilometer on Rhoda Island, Cairo. Nilometers measured how high or low the flood would be. (CC BY SA 3.0)

Yale University researcher Joseph Manning told EurekAlert! “That's the beauty of these climate records. For the first time, you can actually see a dynamic society in Egypt, not just a static description of a bunch of texts in chronological order.

The Nile River from a boat between Luxor and Aswan. (Public Domain)

But this is not just a story of past issues, the researchers stressed to EurekAlert! that we should take note. Ludlow says:

 “The 21st century has been lacking in explosive eruptions of the kind that can severely affect monsoon patterns. But that could change at any time. The potential for this needs to be taken into account in trying to agree on how the valuable waters of the Blue Nile are going to be managed between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.”

 This study is part of the Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society working group of Past Global Changes (PAGES), a global research project of Future Earth.

Fragment of a temple relief with Nile god Hapi. The inscription on the frieze reads "all luck, all life" which is what was hoped for; Medinet (Egypt); 746-655 BC. (Public Domain)

Top Image: Artist’s depiction of an Ancient Egyptian girl kneeling by the Nile River. Source: Ann Wuyts/ CC BY 2.0

By Alicia McDermott

Supervolcano That May Have Wiped out Neanderthals Comes to Life Again

Ancient Origins

A huge area of volcanic activity near heavily populated Naples, Italy, is reaching a critical point and scientists think it could erupt. The 12-kilometer (7.46 miles) caldera or volcanic cauldron hasn’t erupted for nearly 500 years, but scientists say the seismic monster is reawakening. Some researchers speculate that when Campi Flegrei, which translates from Italian as Burning Fields, erupted about 39,000 years ago it may have wiped out the Neanderthals. Although there is no definitive evidence for this, the fact that the caldera has the potential to devastate a large region of Italy and could even cause volcanic winter worldwide is not in question.

An 1845 map of Campi Flegrei by the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. (Wikimedia Commons)

The caldera has 24 craters and some large volcanic edifices, most under the Mediterranean Sea. It formed 39,000 years ago during the most catastrophic volcanic explosion in Europe for 200,000 years, says Science Alert.

Scientists call these types of geological feature supervolcanos, which form large fields of volcanic eruptions and spew so much magma from below that they collapse and leave behind a big crater. The supervolcano landscape generates hydrothermal activity, geysers and sulfuric acid.

Campi Flegrei has had just three eruptions—two large ones 39,000 and 12,000 years ago. A “smaller” one in 1538 was so great that it lasted for eight days and put out such huge releases of lava that it formed Monte Nuovo, a new mountain.

Monte Nuovo was formed during an eruption of Campi Flegrei in 1538. ( Wikimedia Commons photo)

One eruption of Campi Flegrei was so huge that researchers speculate it killed off the Neanderthals. Modern Homo sapiens survived because they lived farther away from the volcanic activity, these researchers say.

While the connection of the demise of the Neanderthals remains purely speculative until further evidence can be found, the eruption, which is thought to have spewed almost 1 trillion gallons (3.7 trillion litres) of molten rock onto the surface - along and with just as much sulfur into the atmosphere - is not.

Another reason Homo sapiens may have outlived Neanderthals was because of a population vacuum of Neanderthals in Europe and a revolution in technological and social advancements that people came up with shortly after 40,000 years ago.

Sulfur in a burning landscape at Campi Flegrei near Naples, Italy ( Wikipedia photo /Donar Reiskoffer)

Scientists can’t accurately predict when a volcano will blow, though they monitor volcanoes, especially near populated areas such as Naples with 500,000 people. Volcanic eruption predictions are an imprecise science.

But volcanologist Giovanni Chiodini of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and his team are saying Campi Flegrei seems to be nearing the point of eruption and is in a state of critical degassing pressure. Their paper in the journal Nature Communications states:

We propose that magma could be approaching the CDP at Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples, one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world, and where accelerating deformation and heating are currently being observed.

The CDP at Campi Flegrei could result in release of jets of super-hot gases into the atmosphere and could heat rocks and hydrothermal fluids that could cause rock failure and even an eruption.

This phenomenon has been observed at two other active volcanoes, one in Papua New Guinea and one in the Galapagos Islands. “Both showed acceleration in ground deformation before eruption with a pattern similar to that observed at Campi Flegrei,” Chiodini told The Guardian .

There are many uncertainties about this possible volcanic activity, Chiodini told The Washington Post . Campi Flegrei may evolve in both directions, toward conditions of pre-eruption or even to the demise of any volcanic unrest.

Top image: The dramatic eruption of Mt Vesuvius. ( Wikimedia Commons )

By Mark Miller

History Trivia - Mount Etna (Sicily) erupts

March 11

1669 Mount Etna (Sicily) erupted. 990,000,000 cubic yards of lava were thrown out over four months, destroying a dozen villages. Ashes formed a double cone more than 150 ft high, now called Monti Rossi.

Frozen in Time: Casts of Pompeii Reveal Last Moments of Volcano Victims

Ancient Origins

The plaster casts of 86 agonized victims of the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD will go on exhibit May 26, 2015, in National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy.
People of Pompeii, a Roman city, were in their death throes when a cloud of gas from the volcano enveloped them, killing them. The gas was 300 degrees centigrade (572 degrees F). Clearly, from the expressions of their faces and their bodily contortions they were caught by surprise when the ash cloud finally consumed them.
An article on ANSA.com states:

Teeth protrude from lips stretched from pain. Smoldering, encrusted skin, protruding skulls and bones, exposed jaws were all caught in the moment of death, when a glowing, 300C cloud seared surfaces of the bodies in a single stroke, leaving their insides soft, and burying them under ash and stones. Among them is the family of the House of the Golden Bracelet: a woman with a baby on her lap. Near her is a man and another child, perhaps two years old.

Harrowing image shows a child sitting on his mother when the ash cloud hit. Credit: Splash News

The actual bodies, which were ossified by the heat, will not go on display but rather the plaster casts that show the exact position the bodies were found in.
Massimo Osanna, the superintendent of archaeology in Pompeii and nearby towns said: "Until now they had never been surveyed, out of a sense of ethics with which these human remains were always treated. No statues of plaster or bronze, but real people who should be treated with respect.”

Some of the victims of volcanic gas cloud were clearly in agony (Bigstock photo)

Archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli found the bodies in 1863 and came up with a way to detect and extract the bodies intact from their resting places in Pompeii. Scientists also found animals, including a dog and a pig, but they won't be on display in the museum. The animals were restored for purposes of archaeology and science, Osanna said.
A team of scientists, including archaeologists, engineers, an anthropologist, restoration experts and radiologists, is undertaking the Great Pompeii Project to do anthropological and genetic profiling of the unfortunate victims of the eruption. The scientists hope to get a better understanding of their way of life and identify them more fully. They will publish their findings and be featured in a documentary by a restoration company from Salerno.
Pompeii was a flouring Roman city from the 6^th century BC until it became frozen in time, preserved by the layers of ash that spewed out from the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the 1^st century AD. Although Pompeii was initially rediscovered at the end of the 16^th  century, it was only properly excavated in the 18^th century. Excavators were startled by the sexually explicit frescoes they were unearthing, quite shocking to the sensibilities of medieval citizens of Rome, so they quickly covered them over.

Raunchy frescoes uncovered in Pompeii. Source: BigStockPhoto

When excavations resumed nearly two centuries later, archaeologists found the city almost entirely intact – loaves of bread still sat in the oven, bodies of men, women, children, and pets were found frozen in their last moments, the expressions of fear still etched on their faces, and the remains of meals remained discarded on the pavement. The astounding discovery meant that researchers could piece together exactly what life was like for the ancient Romans of Pompeii – the food they ate, the jobs they performed and the houses they lived in

.

The city of Pompeii (Bigstock photo)

Photos of researchers working with the bodies and making plaster casts may be viewed at The Daily Mail.
Featured image: Some of the victims of Pompeii were sitting, some lying when the superhot gas cloud enveloped them. (Bigstock photo)
By Mark Miller

Did a Volcano Wipe Out the Neanderthals?

by Tia Ghose
Live Science

From an exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, US. Credit: Flickr/Ricardo Giaviti, CC BY-NC-SA

A massive volcanic eruption about 40,000 years ago probably wasn't big enough to wipe out the Neanderthals as previous research suggested, new research finds.
Although the eruption, which occurred in what is now Italy, blanketed nearby areas in lava and ash, it wouldn't have lowered temperatures enough throughout Europe to be a significant cause of the Neanderthals' demise, said study co-author Benjamin Black, a geologist at the University of California at Berkeley.
Exactly why the Neanderthals disappeared is a mystery. "Neanderthal decline started well before the eruption, so if there were just a few scattered populations that were hanging on at the brink, it's hard to say what might have pushed them over the edge," Black told Live Science.

Long, slow decline
Neanderthals and modern humans diverged from a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago, and at its peak, the Neanderthal population numbered about 70,000. But the population slowly dwindled and Homo neanderthaliswent extinct between 35,000 and 41,000 years ago. Some scientists have proposed that humans killed off the rival hominins, while others say Neanderthals interbred with modern humans until the group was completely absorbed. [Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans]
Another controversial theory has proposed that the Campanian Ignimbrite super-eruption about 40,000 years ago, near modern-day Naples, dramatically cooled the climate.
To test that theory, Black and his colleagues used existing data on rocks from the eruption and combined those with climate models. Their new model predicted how sulfur — which absorbs and scatters sunlight and can therefore cool the climate — was carried through the atmosphere over Europe after the eruption.
The team found that the climate would have cooled at most about 9 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit (5 to 10 degrees Celsius). This certainly would have been a cold snap, but such a temperature swing was still within range of what the Neanderthals would have routinely experienced.
What's more, Neanderthals were already extinct in Italy at that time, and the temperature change in other parts of Europe would have been even more modest, Black said.
The data suggests the eruption wasn't a major factor in the Neanderthals' extinction, Black said.
Case closed?
"I agree with the opinion that it would not have been cold enough after the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption to affect life seriously," Stephen Self, a volcanologist at the U.S.-Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science an email.
But not everyone thinks the case is closed.
"It always strikes me as odd that scientists still keep looking for the one parameter/smoking gun to explain the story, when reality tells us that the impact of natural events is a combination of a series of complex events, and when the combination is unfavorable the effects can be big," Thorvaldur Thordarson, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland, told Live Science in an email.
For instance, the huge amounts of sulfur released in the eruption could also have altered air circulation patterns, meaning the climate models that are based on current circulation patterns might not tell the whole story of what happened during the eruption, said Thordarson, who was not involved in the new study.
Aside from providing insight into the demise of the Neanderthals, the new study could also shed light on our species' ability to adapt to changes in climate, Black said.
"It's kind of cool to think about this study as a way of understanding how resilient human beings are when their environment changes very suddenly, which is something that's happening right now," Black said. "The difference is that 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans did not have some of the luxuries that we have today."
The findings were presented Dec. 18 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.