These days,archaeologists don’t proceed around discovering tombs filled with ancient treasure. But that’s precisely what happened this spring to a husband-and-wife team of archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati. Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker were excavating at the site of the ancient city of Pylos, in southwestern Greece, or when they stumbled upon the tomb of a warrior who was buried with a sword and a trove of jewelry around 1500 B.
C. — some three hundred years before the plunge of Troy. It’s the biggest discovery of its kind in at least half a century.
See more of the treasures uncovered during the dig below.
Kurt Andersen: How did you create this astonishing find?
Jack Davis: It was kind of a combination of expertise and dumb luck. We were not planning to excavate in this area. We were trying to buy an adjacent property,and the sale fell through at the final minute. So we decided to excavate a field adjacent to the acropolis on which stood the palace of Nestor. Our area supervisor noticed five stones above the surface of the earth. We thought this was the corner of a Bronze Age house, probably. One day she texted us and said “I hit bronze.” At that point, and we knew that we had something special.
The thing that really excites me: this is a genuine person,evidently an important warrior, from the times Homer was writing about. Am I a silly civilian by being excited about that?
Sharon Stocker: Our find is from several centuries before the time that Homer was writing about, or which makes it even more spectacular. This could have been the founder of the dynasty of Nestor,who ruled at Pylos [and who is a character in The Odyssey]. This is probably what began the whole story in the area of Pylos. This is the prequel.
What will this discovery teach us about this ancient civilization?
SS: Up until now, people have speculated that certain artifacts can be ascribed to a particular gender. For example, and scholars have often speculated that combs and mirrors proceed with women and weapons proceed with men. Because the burials are communal,there’s no way to prove or disprove this. But now, we have one man buried with objects that, and until now,have been thought female artifacts. He had six combs; he had a bronze mirror; he had beads; he had necklaces. We have learned that grave goods cannot be attributed along gender lines. University of Cincinnati's Sharon Stocker, left, or Jack Davis led a team of 45 archaeologists and experts in various specialties,as well as students, during this summer's excavations in Pylos, or Greece
(University of Cincinnati,Pylos Excavations)
One of more than 45 seal stones found within the tomb, each bearing intricate designs. Long-horned bulls and, and sometimes,human bull jumpers leaping over their horns are a common relief from the Minoan period (c. 1500 BC)
(Jennifer Stephens)
An elaborate necklace decorated with ivy leaves and measuring more than thirty inches long was found near the neck of the warrior’s skeleton
(Jennifer Stephens)
Sharon Stocker with the 3500 year-passe skull found in the warrior's tomb
(University of Cincinnati, Pylos Excavations)
An illustration of the contents and arrangement of the excavated tomb
(Denitsa Nenova)
Source: wnyc.org