German Archaeological Research Articles

End-to-end digital twin creation of the archaeological landscape in Uruk-Warka (Iraq)

ABSTRACT This article demonstrates recent technological advancements enabling the creation of digital twins for expansive real-world terrains. Focusing on the archaeological site Uruk-Warka in southern Iraq the German Archaeological Institute deployed the Delta Quad Pro, a winged UAV equipped with vertical take-off and landing capabilities. This UAV captured 32,000 aerial images of the ancient city and its immediate environment. Each image was precisely geotagged using an integrated DGNSS receiver. Utilizing advanced 3D photogrammetry software, we synthesized these images into a single georeferenced model. The outcome was a detailed triangulated mesh, comprising of one billion triangles and 1024 8k-resolution texture files, representing a 40 square kilometers terrain. When rendered in a game-engine and applying the new technologies Nanite and Streaming Virtual Texture, this massive dataset can be visualized in real-time. The result is ‘Uruk-VR,’ a digital twin of the Uruk-Warka archaeological site, most of which has never been investigated. Basic tools have been implemented to annotate features and measure distances within the Uruk-VR. The methodologies showcased here are scalable for creating digital twins of diverse terrains. Uruk-VR's potential extends to research, education and conservation, exemplifying how game engines can seamlessly integrate vast and diverse geospatial data in 3D space.

Analyses of the brown stain on the Parthenon Centaur head in Denmark

In 1688 two sculptural fragments, a head of bearded man and a head of an unbearded youth, arrived in Copenhagen, sent from Athens as a gift to King Christian 5. They were placed in the Royal Kunstkammer, their provenance given as the Temple of Artemis in Ephesos, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Almost a hundred and fifty years later, in the early 1820’s they were noticed and studied by two scholars independently visiting the Kunstkammer. However, both concluded that the two heads belonged to one of the metopes decorating the south side of the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis in Athens, showing fighting between Greeks and the mythical Centaurs, part man and part horse. In the 1830’s another sculptural fragment, a horse’s hoof, obtained through the German archaeologist and state antiquary of Greece, Ludwig Ross, reached Copenhagen. It was forwarded by the Danish consul to Athens, C.T. Falbe, as a gift to King Christian 8. The inventory reads: ‘… was found on the Acropolis near the Parthenon temple and is supposed to belong to one the Centaurs on the metopes.’ The present paper focuses solely on the head of the Centaur.A brown stain was noticed on the Parthenon marbles as early as 1830 by the British Museum and has ever since eluded a deeper understanding of its genesis despite many investigations and attempts of analyses. A quite similar brown stain can be observed on the Centaur’s head in Copenhagen as well.The present study reports analyses by LA-ICP-MS, SEM–EDX, µXRD, GC–MS, and LC–MS-MS, as well as optical microscopy of five small samples sequestered in 1999 from the Centaur head curated by the National Museum of Denmark. Our analyses show that the brown stain consists of two consecutively added surficial layers of the calcium oxalate minerals whewellite and weddellite. Despite a thorough search using proteomics, we have found no viable organic precursor material for the oxalates. Our results do not solve the mystery of the formation of the brown stain, but they do further qualify the structure and characterization of the brown stain.

Breaking Ground: Women‘s Roles in German Archaeology Since the Nineteenth Century

Breaking Ground: Women‘s Roles in German Archaeology Since the Nineteenth Century

Пам’ятки археології під час війни: польовий досвід та юридичний аспект (на прикладі робіт МАЕ у м. Києві та Київській області у 2022 р.)

The issue of recording the damage caused to cultural heritage as a result of unprovoked aggression of the Russian Federation is extremely relevant. The process of monitoring the destruction of objects takes place both at the state level and thanks to the activities of civil initiatives. However, at the present stage, the analysis of losses focuses mainly on objects of architecture, monumental art and religious buildings. On the other hand, recording the destruction of archaeological sites, due to certain features, faces significant difficulties. This situation is related to the unrevealed state of the archaeological objects themselves, the detection of which is possible due to significant landscape transformations. Among the main factors that make it difficult to record the loss of archaeological heritage, the following should be mentioned: problems related to the accounting of archeology objects, issues of limited remote and direct access to sites in the de-occupied and front-line territories, immediate risks to life and health when conducting field research. In order to solve problems in the field of documenting damage to the archaeological heritage, representatives of a number of domestic scientific, educational and museum institutions created an interdisciplinary Archaeological Landscapes Monitoring Group, whose task is to record losses at archaeological sites. Currently, the work of the group is carried out in the territories of Kyiv and Chernihiv regions within the framework of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) project 'Ukrainian Archaeological Heritage, threatened by war: saving and protection'. One of the conclusions obtained during the work of the Group was the understanding of the need for direct field studies of destroyed areas of landscapes, given the limited use of remote methods of studying and the need for production site-protection documentation, which provides for the cultural and chronological attribution of objects. The article provides a brief summary of the Group's work in Kyiv region and analyzes the compliance of monitoring activities with international standards. One of the conclusions of the proposed study is the statement about the need for a long-term state program for compiling the archaeological cadastre of Ukraine. The crisis in the archaeological heritage accounting system and the existing need to record losses in the field of archaeology during the war allows to restart the system of sites registering at a modern level and with the use of international experience. Key words: cultural heritage, archaeological monitoring, recording of damages, war, archaeological landscape, accounting of sites.

When Balts Met Vikings at the Curonian Lagoon. Strategies of Social Representation at the Viking-Age Cemetery at Linkuhnen

The cemetery at Linkuhnen by River Memel had a long history of usage by local Baltic tribes, starting in the early Roman Period and continuing to the Viking Age, with the highest number of burials in the 10th–11th centuries AD. When Linkuhnen was excavated in the 1930s by German archaeologists, it was considered a Viking cemetery, since some of the grave goods (especially weaponry) seemed to bear signs of Scandinavian influences. However, the Scandinavian influence was overstated and the interaction between local Balts and Vikings was never thoroughly explained by the excavators. New research on the old excavation archives indicates that Linkuhnen was not a Viking burial ground but that incoming influences from Scandinavia brought a shift to the internal strategies of representation by local Baltic elites. The burial rite changed from simple single cremation graves to lavishly equipped collective cremation graves for members of powerful families or military units. Another remarkable feature is the large number and ‘international’ character of weaponry in the burials, some of the highest quality (Ulfberht), while the jewellery represents local types only. Unlike other Scandinavian-influenced sites on the southern Baltic coast, the Scandinavian presence in the River Memel area only led to minor interactions between Balts and Vikings, though it had a significant influence on the local Baltic elites’ internal representation of status.

Venison for the Citadel

Tissamaharāma known from historic times as Mahagama is one of the earliest and largest urbanised centres in Sri Lanka, dating from the Early Historic period. As part of the collaborative research programme between the Department of Archaeology of the Government of Sri Lanka and the Commission for Archaeology of Non-European Cultures (KAAK) of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations were conducted at Tissamaharāma from 1992 to 2010. These extensive excavations at the Tissamaharāma citadel have yielded a very large quantity of excellently preserved faunal remains from the Early Historic Period of ca. 500 BCE to 250 BCE. The analysis of these animal bones indicates the presence of a significant component of large mammals notably, deer (Axis axis). Of considerable importance is the rib of a deer with an embedded broken quartz arrowhead, from the microlithic tradition. The deer represented in this sample was presumably part of the supply of venison to the city dwellers, brought from outside. Our data show that microlithic technology had persisted to at least the Early Historic phase in Sri Lanka.

Cuando el alumno moderno supera al maestro antiguo. La Atenea de Lemnia de Fidas, La Reconstrucción de Adolf Furtwängler y la reproducción de August Gerber

In this paper I deal with analyzing the links between lost masterpieces, the attribution of sculptures as old copies, and the possibility of creating reconstructions from them and thanks to the making of sculptural tracings. Specifically, we will focus on the case of study of the Athena Lemnia, a sculpture made by Phidias. I will focus on highlighting the way in which the reference to Phidias was studied by Adolf Furtwängler, German archaeologist and art historian, to identify a series of material remains as “exact copies” of the lost original one.

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ACCURACY OF THE UAV SYSTEM DJI MATRICE 300 RTK WITH THE SENSORS ZENMUSE P1 AND L1 IN THE HAMBURG TEST FIELD

Abstract. The development of increasingly powerful Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is progressing continuously, so that these systems equipped with high-resolution sensors can be used for a variety of different applications. With the Matrice 300 RTK, Da-Jiang Innovations Science and Technology Co. Ltd (DJI) has launched a system that can use the high-resolution camera Zenmuse P1 or the laser scanner Zenmuse L1 as a recording sensor, among other sensors. In order to investigate the geometric quality of these two sensors, HafenCity University Hamburg, in cooperation with LGV Hamburg, NLWKN in Norden and the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn, flew over the 3D test field in the Inselpark in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg on 5 August 2021 with the P1 camera and the L1 laser scanner. Using the Matrice 300 RTK as carrier platform, the test field was recorded in various configurations at altitudes between 50 m and 90 m above ground. Prior to the UAV flight campaign, 44 marked ground control points (GCP) were signalised in the test field, which had already been surveyed by LGV in 2020 using geodetic measurement methods to achieve a coordinate accuracy of ±5 mm for each GCP. The results of aerial triangulations as well as 3D point clouds generated from image data and laser scanning are compared with reference data in order to demonstrate the accuracy potential of these measurement systems in this paper.

Ein spätbronzezeitlicher Bronzehort der Kolchis-Kultur aus Kalvata in Westgeorgien

The study of bronze hoards of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages dates back to the 1930s. Currently, 214 bronze hoards are known from the territory of Georgia. The author defined this number of depositions as a result of his work in various museums of Georgia in 2018 and 2019. This work was carried out within the framework of the project of the German Research Foundation (project director Prof. Dr. Svend Hansen, German Archaeological Institute / Berlin), which aims at a detailed study of hoards of the Colchian culture in the Western and Central Caucasus. Within the framework of the project, in the summer of 2018, the author also explored the Kalvata hoard (Sachkhere Municipality, Imereti Region, Georgia) preserved in the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi (GNM, Inventory # 1-38: 1-14). The Kalvata hoard consists of three bronze Colchian axes, 6 bronze hoes, 36 bronze bars, and two small pieces of bronze, belonging to an unidentified item. This hoard was hitherto dated by 10th-8th centuries BC. A detailed study of the hoard, and the search for parallels with the items in it, in particular, the axes, hoes, and bars, revealed that the Kalvata hoard belonged to the middle of the second half of the second millennium, more precisely, the 13th – 12th centuries BC. Accordingly, the date of the Kalvata collection is at least 300 years older than it was believed before. The author is convinced that most (if not all) bronze hoards of the Colchian culture had a religious destination and were votives to various gods. The fact that the hoards were indeed a sacrifice to the gods is corroborated by many facts.

Проект Советской Академии в Риме (1924): Вяч. Иванов, А.В. Луначарский, П.С. Коган и другие

In spring of 1924 Viacheslav Ivanov was invited to Moscow to participate in the June celebrations of the 125th anniversary of Aleksandr Pushkin’s birth. The months he spent in the capital reflect an unusually active social schedule. As his address book of the summer of 1924 indicates, he met with a wide range of people: composers and performers (Reinhold Glière, Mikhail Gnesin, Aleksandr Grechaninov, Aleksandr Goldenweiser, Nikolai Miaskovsky, Nikolai Medtner, Leonid Sabaneev), poets and prose writers (Valery Briusov, Iurgis Baltrushaitis, Andrei Globa, Vasily Kazin, Vladimir Lidin, Isaiah Lezhnev, Vladimir Nilender, Ivan Novikov, Sergei Poliakov, Ivan Rukavishnikov, Sergei Shervinsky, Anastasia Tsvetaeva), theater directors (Vsevolod Meyerhold, Aleksandr Tairov), literary scholars (Mikhail Gershenzon, Leonid Grossman, Viktor Zhirmunsky, Boris Eichenbaum), artists (Anatoly Arapov, Nikolai Ulianov, Nikolai Vysheslavtsev, Konstantin Yuon), priests and theologians (Sergei Sidorov, Pavel Florensky), art historians and museum curators (Count Valentin Zubov, Nikolai Mashkovtsev, Boris Ternovets, Abram Efros) and others. Many of these people were in one way or another connected to the activity of the State Academy for the Study of the Arts (GAKhN). It was in fact for GAKhN that Ivanov gave a series of well-received lectures. After receiving his passport to travel to Italy on 4 July 1924, Ivanov decided to postpone his departure for an entire month. It would seem that this delay was connected to the need to draw up a project for the creation in Rome of a Soviet State Institute for History, Archeology and Art History. The project was supported by Petr Kogan, the president of GAKhN, and by Anatoly Lunacharsky, the head of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment. The Institute was envisioned as an organization that would serve both researchers and students, following the models of the corresponding academies in Rome — the French Academy, the French School of Archeology, the German Archeological Institute, etc. As Ivanov formulated it in the first plan that he gave to Lunacharsky on 24 August 1924: “The absence of Russia in the arena where cultured peoples are jointly and competitively pursuing scholarly work and cooperating in advanced scholarly colloquy is a kind of voluntary exclusion from contemporary civilization and an indirect affirmation of false rumors about the decline of our culture.”

The dinosaur from 600 BCE! Interpreting the dragon of Babylon, from archaeological excavation into fringe science

In 1918, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, excavator of Babylon, Iraq, observed that the depiction of the fantastical “dragon of Babylon” on the sixth century BCE Ishtar Gate must reference a real animal whose closest relatives would be dinosaurs like the iguanodon. Though ignored within archaeology, Koldewey’s comments were taken up in German-American popular science writer Willy Ley’s “romantic zoology” (1941), then by Bernard Heuvelmans (1955), founding figure in the fringe field of cryptozoology. Their interpretations would ultimately inspire expeditions by the International Society of Cryptozoologists in Central Africa to find the Mokele-Mbembe, a “living dinosaur,” and migrate into Young Earth Creationist and ancient aliens theories. An analysis of Koldewey’s marginal academic observation serves as a means of considering the process of knowledge formation and canonization and the unpredictable life of scholarly ideas.

Book Review of Ursprung und Frühzeit des Heraion von Samos. Part 1, Topographie, Architektur und Geschichte, by Hans Walter, Angelika Clemente, and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier

Since 2019, the Samos series issued by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), which is dedicated to conclusive publication of the site’s excavation results, has been enriched by no fewer than six recent additions in a sequence that now contains 32 hefty volumes. Several more are in progress, indicating the great strides that the publication project is making. Samos 21.1 contains a cornucopia of information as it attempts a broad synthesis as well as a thorough presentation and analysis of finds first published elsewhere in summary form; it also presents some altogether new evidence.

A TRIBUTE TO PROFESSOR ZHANG CHANGSHOU 張長壽 (1929–2020)

AbstractZhang Changshou was one of the most important archaeologists of modern China, and a founder of Western Zhou archaeology. Zhang is particularly well known as the author of a series of works that established the chronology of the Western Zhou material culture and is esteemed for his excellent scholarship also on bronzes and jade objects, characterized by a strong basis in field archaeology. Among his academic appointments are Director of the Feng-Hao Archaeological Team in 1963–1988, and Associate Director of the Institute of Archaeology (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) in 1985–1988. Zhang was also a pioneer of Sino-American collaboration (with Harvard University) in field archaeology and was elected a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute in 1988. Zhang passed away in Beijing on January 30, 2020. This article summarizes his academic accomplishments.

THE KAUSIA BOY FIGURINES FROM DEMETRIAS: A REASSESSMENT

Demetrias has yielded the largest number of terracotta figurines of a popular iconographic type of the Hellenistic period: the ‘kausia boy’, shown standing, dressed in the chiton, chlamys, kausia and krepides. The rediscovery of the material from A.S. Arvanitopoulos’ excavations at Demetrias in the early twentieth century has provided an opportunity to reassess the significance of this iconographic type in the city and in the wider Hellenistic world. Combining and comparing the material from Arvanitopoulos’ excavations with that from other excavations in the city by the German Archaeological Institute and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Magnesia, it is now clear that the kausia boy figurines from Demetrias were discovered in various contexts, including sanctuaries, graves and the foundations of the royal palace (Anaktoron); the largest number was found in the sanctuary of Pasikrata. It has been possible to identify more than ten technical types, confirming the importance of these figures in the coroplastic production of the city. This paper also discusses the iconographic types of the ‘shepherds’, kausia-wearing boys holding the syrinx and the lagobolon, as well as the animal-carrying boys, since they too are wearing the same attire, and are mechanically related to the simple kausia boy types. The study of Demetrias’ specimens, combined with the study of the distribution of these iconographic types in the Hellenistic world and the relevant iconographic, literary and epigraphic evidence enable its reinterpretation.

Mapping Damascus during the First World War. A German-Ottoman Cooperation of Cartography, Archaeology and Military?

Abstract. In 1916, the German museum director and archaeologist Theodor Wiegand travelled to the Near East and became “Inspector General of Antiquities in Syria” as head of the 19th Bureau within the IV Ottoman Army under Ahmed Cemal Pasha. In the post-war period the formation was called “German Turkish Commando for Monument Protection”, though it consisted mainly of German archaeologists and architects who dedicated themselves to the preservation of antique sites and the collection of antiquities. To investigate the region, the scientists also used Bavarian Flying-Detachments and had aerial photographs taken. The Commando enquired, preserved, and surveyed ancient sites. However, the scientists were also involved in mapping important sites and cities such as Damascus. For this purpose, the archaeologists not only conducted trigonometrical surveys but also used aerial photographs to complement the results taken on the ground.Against the background of the German-Ottoman cooperation and the involvement of experts such as archaeologists and architects, the paper analyses the – occasionally paradoxical – situation in which the actors dedicated themselves to map the city of Damascus. The contribution answers the question whether the map was developed to visualize ancient buildings and structures in Damascus for preservation purposes or was rather produced due to military objectives. In a helix of overlapping or rivalling aims and agendas of the German and Ottoman archaeology, military and politics it shows attempts, measures and intentions aiming at the production of maps during the First World War.

On the Date of the Great Shigir Idol

The Great Shigir Idol is the largest anthropomorphic wooden sculpture in the world, a unique work of Stone Age art, and a valuable source for reconstructing the material culture and worldview of the ancient population of Northern Eurasia. Although study of it began more than 100 years ago, a number of issues, such as the place of discovery, context, date, methods of exhibition, etc., remain controversial. This article analyses archival documents relevant to the location and time of discovery of the Great Shigir Idol, and on the accompanying finds. The results of a recent comprehensive study conducted by Russian and German archaeologists and scientists in 2014 are outlined. The focus is on the analysis of AMS radiocarbon dates, spanning a period from the Late Pleistocene (~10,500 cal BC) to the Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic (~6000 cal BC). These dates show a considerable range of variation, and they disagree with those derived from the conventional radiocarbon dating in 1997. Paleogeographic and archaeological data from the Trans-Urals do not support the early (9600–9000 cal BC) estimates of the time of the idol’s creation, but rather correspond to later ones, derived from the AMS 14 C analysis conducted in 2014. Therefore, it is necessary to continue the study of Mesolithic sites and paleoclimate of the Urals, determine the nature of primary peat formation at the Ural peatlands, and assess their age and that of the microremains of peat in early cracks in the idol, etc.

Kossinna, the Nordische Gedanke, and Swedish Archaeology: Discourse and politics in German and Swedish archaeology 1900-1950

This article looks at the relation between Swedish and German archaeology in the first half of the 20th century. In particular, the focus is on the question why Swedish prehistorians came to accept the archaeology of Gustaf Kossinna. Thc methodological inspiration principally comes from Carlo Ginzburg and his idea of clucs. The empirical material mainly consists of books and journals. Newspapers and archives have also been used, but to a much lesser cxtent. Gustaf Kossinna was the dominant archaeologist in Germany in the early 20th ccntury. The Siedliungsarchäologie was to a large extent his creation, and he was instrumental in making a spatial tum in archaeology. Kossinna was part of the Nordische Gedanke movement. Thus, the Nordic/Germanic blood, earth, and soil were paramount to Kossinnian archaeology. It was so important that Kossinna thought only Europe, in particular the Nordic region, which to him included parts of Germany, should be subjectcd to archaeological investigations. At the tum of the 20th ccntury, Swedish archaeology was dominated by Oscar Montelius and his chronological typology. In the 1910s, however, his position was challcngcd by proponents of a more spatially oriented archaeology. Among the opponents werc two young archaeologists, Nils Åberg and Sune Lindquist, who both had participated in the archaeological seminar organiscd by Knut Stjerna. In different ways, Åberg and Lindquist used Kossinna's archaeology in thc struggle against the Montelian dominance.

The Slavs Yesterday and Today - Different Perspectives on Slavic Ethnicity in German Archaeology

This article deals with the numerous images of the Slavic tribes between the Elbe and the Oder in archaeological interpretations. The position taken by East German archaeologists was to integrate the Slavs explicitly into the theoretical constructions of historical-materialism; in the ideological struggle between East and West the Slavs, as victims of medieval feudal developments politically supported the picture of a common socialist identity and history. In contrast West German archaeologists on the basis of rigid source criticism placed the Slavs behind the scenes of the historical stage.

The Invention of ‘National Antiquities’ in the Late Ottoman Empire. Archaeological Interrelations between Discourses of Appropriation, Preservation and Heritage Construction

In the late 19th century, the German Empire intensified its economic, military, and cultural activities on Ottoman territory. Within the field of archaeology, the Royal Museums in Berlin endeavoured to demonstrate their hegemony. Thus, they focused particularly on the acquisition of ancient objects from the Ottoman territory. The Ottoman authorities’ responses differed between political and cultural actors: While Sultan Abdülhamid II used Hellenistic and Byzantine antiquities as diplomatic gifts to improve his foreign relations to Berlin, the Müze-i Hümayun (Imperial Museum) appeared as an antagonist to foreign claims in the Ottoman Empire. Its directors, Osman Hamdi and Halil Edhem, aimed to rectify the discrepancy between political concerns and the will to preserve antiquities within the Ottoman realm. However, German archaeologists, museum representatives and diplomats strived to benefit from this discrepancy to obtain cultural objects for Berlin. The article argues that Prussia’s strategies of appropriating ancient objects for the Royal Museums correlated and entangled with the valorisation of antiquities in Istanbul.

Horst Wolfgang Böhme, Die spätantiken Gürtel mit kerbschnittverzierten Metallbeschlägen: Studien zu Militärgürteln des 4.‐5. Jahrhunderts. Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanische Zentralmuseums, 2020, 250 pp, 77 ill., and 12 maps

This book represents the latest study of this important material by the renowned German archaeologist Horst Wolfgang Böhme, until 2005 Professor of Ancient History and Medieval Archaeology at the University of Marburg. It is no exaggeration to say that despite the large number of scholars internationally working on metalwork produced by the ‘barbarian’ peoples of the fourth- to seventh- centuries, Böhme is the leading specialist in this field – a position he has held for decades. Indeed, his lifelong research, and especially his seminal Germanische Grabfunde des 4.‐5. Jahrhundert zwischen unterer Elbe und Loire (1974) is fundamental to understanding the role of the late antique interactions between the late Roman state and its Germanic neighbours to the north.