A hoard consisting of 140 gold and silver coins, a gold ring set with an engraved stone, a gold earring, and two silver sticks that may have held kohl, has been unearthed in Israel, near the city of Qiryat Gat. The treasures had been wrapped in a cloth and buried in a courtyard. Most of the coins date to the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan, and were probably hidden during the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which occurred between 132 and 135 A.D.

Eastern Mediterranean merchants who sold oil, wine, and other commodities in spherical jugs may have measured the liquids with an Egyptian system that linked units of length to units of volume. The jugs can be grouped into different sizes, each of which has a similar circumference that can be measured with a string. “The use of the Egyptian method is a strong indicator of Egyptian power in this region during a specific period of time,” said Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University.

One of seven basket traps discovered in an ancient river valley submerged in the cold waters of the Baltic Sea has been carbon-dated to 9,000 years old. Marine archaeologists from Sweden’s Sodertorn University say that makes the baskets the oldest fishing traps in the world. The baskets, made of thin hazel sticks, were placed in the river bed and would have led the fish into a creel or were part of an actual creel.

Bozhidar Dimitrov, head the Bulgarian National History Museum, announced that archaeologists excavating a church in the Black Sea town of Sozopol had uncovered a 700-year-old vampire burial. The man’s body had been stabbed multiple times and then buried with an iron bar in his chest. The grave was placed near the apse of the church, suggesting he had been an aristocrat.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, June 5, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.