The Riace Bronzes: Warriors Rescued From the Sea

On 21 and August 22, 1972 near the Ionian coast of Marina di Riace, the police and the men of the Archaeological Superintendence of Reggio Calabria made a spectacular recovery of two large bronze statues, buried for centuries under the sand of the sea bottom: from then on they were known as the Riace bronzes. The statues had been sighted six days before by Stefano Mariottini, a Roman chemist doing underwater fishing.

It was the first great mass phenomenon related to underwater archeology: ancient beauty seems to have an almost immediate impact in our time. The need for beauty is still connected to Greek culture, Greek beauty is still the most understandable; it was founded on nature with a strong intellectual foundation, the artists were also men expert in geometry and theoretical calculation.

The soil inside the statues was analyzed and it became clear that the so-called Bronze A - the younger one with the "nasty" air, teeth coated in silver, a peremptory look, a position turning to his right - had been cast in the city of Argos,The other statue, Bronze B (the older one) would instead be Amphiaraus, a warrior prophet who foresaw his own death beneath the walls of Thebes. Both in fact participated in the legendary expedition of the city of Argos against Thebes, which had a disastrous ending.

The bronzes have considerable muscle elasticity being in a position defined as "chiasmus" (from the Greek letter "chi"). More specifically, bronze A (the Young man) appears more nervous and vital, while bronze B (the Old man) seems more relaxed. The statues convey a remarkable sense of power, mainly due to the arms being strongly distanced from the body. The bent arm was certainly holding a shield, the other hand a weapon. Bronze B's head is oddly shaped and appears small because it allowed the placement of a Corinthian helmet. The right arm and the left arm of the B underwent a second welding, probably for a restoration in antiquity.

The study of the materials and casting technique reveals a certain difference between the two statues, which might be attributed to different artists or, if made by the same artist, to distinct periods or different places.

The first civilization capable of realism had used exaggeration to go further, and it's that instinct which still dominates our world today. The ancient Greeks cared about physical perfection, and so did Michael Angelo: he too created unrealistic bodies that were more than human, what artists chose to exaggerate was to express more than realism could."

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Crusade era hand granade used by Islamic forces, 12th century

The hand grenade is a handsome example of a weapon in common use by Islamic forces during the Crusader (1099-1187), Ayyubid (1187-1250) and Mamluk (1260-1516) periods. It is made of unglazed ceramic and embossed with grooves and tear drop-shaped designs. It has a domed top over a spherical body that tapers to a point. They were filled with incendiary material – petroleum, naphtha, Greek fire — and thrown or catapulted into the enemy camp where they exploded fire that water could not put out on their targets. There’s a small hole in the top into which flammable liquid could be poured and a wick added once the grenade was loaded.

There is historical and archaeological evidence of this type of vessel being used in war. For one thing, clusters of them have been found in fortresses, castles and moats. The 12th century historian Mardi ibn Ali al-Tarsusi mentioned in the military manual he wrote for Saladin in 1187 that terracotta vessels with incendiary contents were launched from catapults or thrown from ramparts. Other sources from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries describe the clay gourds in more detail, explaining how they were used in battle and the various launching methods. Chemical analysis of residue inside several similar pieces discovered traces of rock salt, pine resin and other flammable materials. One gourd on display in the National Museum of Damascus has an inscription that leaves no question as to its bellicose purpose: “This kind of projectile is useful for targeting the enemy.”

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This drawing was made 700 years ago by a 7-years-old boy named Onfim who lived in Novogrod.

Here’s something very special. In the 1950s archeologists made a great discovery near the city of Novgorod, Russia: they dug up hundreds of pieces of birch bark with all sorts of texts written on them. The 915 items are mostly letters, notes and receipts, all written between the 11th and 15th century. Among the more notable scraps is a marriage proposal from a man called Mikita to his beloved Anna: “marry me - I want you and you want me, and the witness to that is Ignat Moiseev” (item 377).

The most special items, however, are the ones shown above, which are from a medieval classroom. In the 13th century, young schoolboys learning to write filled these scraps with alphabets and short texts. Bark was ideal material for writing down things with such a short half-life. Then the pupils got bored and started to doodle, as kids do: crude drawings of individuals with big hands, as well as a figure with a raised sword standing next to a defeated beast (lower image). The last one was drawn by Onfim, who put his name next to the victorious warrior. The snippets provide a delightful and most unusual peek into a 13th-century classroom, with kids learning to read - and getting bored in the process.

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Sixty-five years after it crash-landed on a beach in Wales, an American P-38 fighter plane has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried

Sixty-five years after it crash-landed on a beach in Wales, an American P-38 fighter plane has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried — a World War II relic long forgotten by the US government and unknown to the British public.

The Lockheed “Lightning” fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has suddenly reappeared due to unusual conditions which caused the sands to shift and erode.
It was first spotted by a family enjoying a day at the beach on July 31 and a team of US specialists were informed and flew over to survey the site.

The twin-engine P-38, a radical design conceived by Lockheed design genius Clarence “Kelly” Johnson in the late 1930s, became one of the war’s most successful fighter planes, serving in Europe and the Pacific.
Some 10,000 were built, and about 32 complete or partial airframes are believed to still exist, perhaps 10 in flying condition.
The Wales Lightning, built in 1941, reached Britain in early 1942 and flew combat missions along the Dutch-Belgian coast.

Second Lt. Robert F. “Fred” Elliott, 24, of Rich Square, North Carolina, was on a gunnery practice mission on Sept. 27, 1942, when a fuel supply error forced him to make an emergency landing on the nearest suitable place — the Welsh beach.

His belly landing in shallow water sheared off a wingtip, but Elliott escaped unhurt.

Less than three months later, the veteran of more than 10 combat missions was shot down over Tunisia, in North Africa.
His plane and body were never found.

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Vendel helmets - before norseman started to sail west.

In the dark times of Europe, when the whole contintent was still divided into hundreds of mini realms the brave men of north weren't ready to sail. From 6th till 8th century AD Norway and Sweden was in chaos. The later known Nordic kingdoms or ‘nations’ had not yet been developed during the Vendel age. Scandinavia was inhabited by numerous North Germanic tribes and clans who were almost in constant war with each other. Even the sub-tribes and clans of the larger tribes were politically independent from each other, constantly fighting one another. It seems that at times powerful warlords appeared establishing ephemeral principalities or kingdoms. This is the time and the societies described in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, an epic possibly of Jute or Gott/Gotar origins. We call this period as a Vendel, pre-Viking period. It's famous from very wealthy burial sites of norse elite warriors.


In this era the largest tribes of eastern and southern Scandinavia were the Svears, the Gotar and their probable branches – the Gauthigoth, Ostrogothae, Vagoth, Gutar, Theustes – the Jutes. Graves from Vendel (but also from other places) are very wealthy, what is interesting they are similar to famous anglo-saxon burial site: Sutton Hoo.

In 1881-1883 several excavations by Hjalmar Stolpe revealed 14 graves in and just beyond the south-east corner of Vendel churchyard. Several of the burials were contained in boats up to 9 metres long, and were richly furnished with arrangements of weapons (including fine swords), helmets, cauldrons and chains, beads, shields, tools, etc. Vendel has given its name to a period (the Vendel Age) in the Scandinavian Iron Age, and to the corresponding style in Art (the Vendel Style). It has often been suggested that the Germanic Vandals, or at least their kings or rulers, were connected to the site. In this it is coupled with the name of a companion site at Valsgärde in the same region. The close comparisons with the 27-metre ship burial at Sutton Hoo show a direct connection between the armourers producing work found at the two sites, a connection central to the understanding of both. The Sutton Hoo burial is often associated with King Raedwald of East Anglia, (ruled c 599-624), who in his later reign (c 616-624) was most powerful among the rulers of the English kingdoms.


The numerous tribes of the Vendel age gradually began to join in larger tribal unions or confederations, usually by force, while most Jutes, Angles and Northern Saxons of modern Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein had already migrated to Britain at the beginning of this period (starting at the early 5th century AD, of the pre-Vendel era). The Svear and the peoples of Scandinavia possibly related to the continental Goths – that is to say the Heruli (Heruls) and the Gotar (Gott Gutar and/or Geats) and their branches of modern Gotaland and the Oland & Gotland Islands (in modern southern Sweden) – went on living side by side during the Vendel period (550-793 AD) and the Viking age (793– early 11th century AD). Finally after several confrontations, around the 12th century they joined in a single kingdom, after all not being significantly different in language, origins and culture. Thereby they were both assimilated in the Swedish nation.


According to historians, the Viking Age began on June 8, A.D. 793, at an island monastery off the coast of northern England. Norseman started to sail. A contemporary chronicle recorded the moment with a brief entry: “The ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter.” The “heathen men” were Vikings, fierce warriors who sailed from Scandinavia and bore down on their prey in Europe and beyond in sleek, fast-sailing ships. In the centuries that followed, the Vikings’ vessels carried them deep into Russia and as far south as Constantinople, Sicily, and possibly even North Africa. They organized flotillas capable of carrying warriors across vast distances, and terrorized the English, Irish, and French coasts with lightning-fast raids. Exploratory voyages to the west took them all the way to North America.

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