"Excavators also removed a layer of mud roughly 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) thick from inside the coffin that Fényes hopes could contain more treasures."
i strongly suspect this is not "mud" but the dried precipitate of liquified soft tissue, [coffin liquor] and condensation.
I wish someone would do the math, it feels like a human body wouldn’t leave that much remains after degrading. I remember learning in the cemetery tour at New Orleans that those above ground tombs are family tombs and that they contain generations of people. The top shelf is where the body goes and it stays for one year and degrades before it is opened again and scraped into the bottom layer where multiple generations dwell forever together.
sarcophagus looks to be 2 feet by 7 feet based on scale of objects in the image.
is 1.75 cubic feet of solid material reasonable?
the image displays distinct relief cracks of a drying wet slurry, the dark staining inside the coffin suggests high fluid mark was maybe 4inches, it may have knocked an urn over, before recedeing, and evaporating.
while not up on the finer points of such burial practice, it doesnt seem unreasonable that a consideral amount of flowers and other plant materials may be involved, there should be considerable pollen present, potassium and sodium salts of the decedent, adipocere, and perhaps diatoms dependent on the nature of the soil, and source of water percolating into the sarcophagus.
i believe considering it to be just mud, would be to overlook, a volume of pertinant discovery.
I was reading the article looking for mentions of some analysis that this might allow. Perhaps all that archaeology does with this material is to sift it for objects.
Until today. Open a grave one day and you are a grave robber. Open it on some other day and you are a scientist. I think the people who sealed the grave wouldn't see much of a difference.
What an aggressive website: at the same time, there's 2 different popups, a display ad and a video ad playing without being activated. Doesn't AP make enough money selling news to news organizations? Disgusting.
What a strange way to date it. "The Roman sarcophagus from the III century CE is unearthed in Budapest". Okay? The Roman Empire did span that far in that time period, and IIRC that time period is already quite well represented archaeologically speaking.
> “The peculiarity of the finding is that it was a hermetically sealed sarcophagus. It was not disturbed previously, so it was intact,” said Gabriella Fényes, the excavation’s lead archaeologist.
If this is the case -- dont scientists have interest in analyzing the air contents inside this sealed box before it is fully opened -- maybe by inserting a narrow tube? Might that not teach us something that may help us preserve future archaeological finds better? Maybe we are irreversibly destroying some of the evidence inside it by casually opening them? (I am sure they are not intentionally careless or destroying it -- but just wondering if future scince might make the current scientific process look clunky and ill-advised)
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 55.1 ms ] threadi strongly suspect this is not "mud" but the dried precipitate of liquified soft tissue, [coffin liquor] and condensation.
https://historyinstone.blogspot.com/2019/07/above-ground-bur...
is 1.75 cubic feet of solid material reasonable?
the image displays distinct relief cracks of a drying wet slurry, the dark staining inside the coffin suggests high fluid mark was maybe 4inches, it may have knocked an urn over, before recedeing, and evaporating.
while not up on the finer points of such burial practice, it doesnt seem unreasonable that a consideral amount of flowers and other plant materials may be involved, there should be considerable pollen present, potassium and sodium salts of the decedent, adipocere, and perhaps diatoms dependent on the nature of the soil, and source of water percolating into the sarcophagus.
i believe considering it to be just mud, would be to overlook, a volume of pertinant discovery.
Until today. Open a grave one day and you are a grave robber. Open it on some other day and you are a scientist. I think the people who sealed the grave wouldn't see much of a difference.
Good post though.
If this is the case -- dont scientists have interest in analyzing the air contents inside this sealed box before it is fully opened -- maybe by inserting a narrow tube? Might that not teach us something that may help us preserve future archaeological finds better? Maybe we are irreversibly destroying some of the evidence inside it by casually opening them? (I am sure they are not intentionally careless or destroying it -- but just wondering if future scince might make the current scientific process look clunky and ill-advised)
[1] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/08/12/beach-bar-sarc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LknkrGnCTG8