AJNW (John) Prag

The University of Manchester · Manchester Museum

This is the fourth and final part of the series inspired by the rediscovery in 2003 of two skeletons excavated in 1877 in Shaft Grave VI in Circle A at Mycenae by Panayiotis Stamatakis. The contribution of Stamatakis to the excavations, the discrepancies between his unpublished reports to the Archaeological Society and Schliemann's account, and the...

This chapter discusses the role of the skull in forming the face and in identifying individuality, particularly in reconstructing ancient faces that bear semblance to the dead. Skulls serve as the armature of the face, where tissue, muscles and the skin are attached to form a distinct face. Whereas a surgeon removes layers of skin and tissue to rev...

A wooden shovel, dating from the Early Bronze Age, has survived in a remarkable state of preservation in the copper mines of Alderley Edge, Cheshire UK. Other historic timbers recovered from the mines, whilst still intact, have fared less well. An X-ray investigation into the distribution of minerals through the shovel using portable X-ray Fluoresc...

This article is the third in a series inspired by the rediscovery in 2003 of two skeletons excavated in 1877 in Shaft Grave VI in Circle A at Mycenae by Panayiotis Stamatakis. Having studied those two individuals and reconstructed their faces, and having conducted a study of strontium isotope analyses on all the individuals from Grave Circle A, we...

Building work at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens in 2003 led to the rediscovery of the two male skeletons from Shaft Grave VI at Mycenae, found by Panayiotis Stamatakis in 1877 as he completed the excavation of Grave Circle A begun by Schliemann. The find provided a triple opportunity. First came a re-assessment of Stamatakis's importa...

Attempts were made to detect ancient DNA (aDNA) in samples of 8g human skeletons from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Greece and Crete. Ancient DNA was absent in specimens from Nea Nicomedia, Lerna, Kato Zakro: Karaviádena, and Mycenae Grave Circle A. For each of three skeletons sampled from Antron Grave Circle B, polymerase chain reactions (PCRs...

The object of this study is a battle helmet of Corinthian type, now in the collections of The Manchester Museum. The Corinthian helmet has been called “sone of the great independent achievements of early Greek technology”. It was manufactured out of a single piece of bronze, probably on a rod-anvil, and like all body-armour it was made to measure....

Attempts were made to detect ancient DNA (aDNA) in samples of 88 human skeletons from eight Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Greece and Crete. Ancient DNA was absent in specimens from Nea Nikomedia, Lerna, Karaviádena (Zakro), Antron Grave Circle A and Mycenae Grave Circle A. For each of three skeletons from Antron Grave Circle B that were sampled...

The richness of the burials in Grave Circle B at Mycenae, Greece indicates that the 35 people interred there held elite status during their lifetimes 3500 years ago. It has been speculated that the groups of burials represent different dynasties or branches of the same family. To test this hypothesis, we carried out an exhaustive ancient DNA (aDNA)...

The object of this study is a battle helmet of Corinthian type, now in the collections of The Manchester Museum. The Corinthian helmet has been called “one of the great independent achievements of early Greek technology”. It was manufactured out of a single piece of bronze, probably on a rod-anvil, and like all body-armour it was made to measure. T...

ABSTRACTS The original intention of the project, conceived in the context of the British School at Rome's excavation and survey programme in the Bradano basin (based on Gravina) was to establish the composition patterns of Hellenistic glazed wares from sites in southern Apulia, and then to use these to trace the trading patterns of the area, agains...

INAA at Manchester began almost by chance, and amid scepticism, with a request for help from the university's Department of Archaeology in the early 1970s. Over the years, the method of selecting pottery to be sampled was refined from the simple assumption that sherds found at a site were typical of those made there, to a greater focus on kiln site...

Neutron radiation offers several advantages with respect to traditional archaeometric analyses of art objects and of archaeological materials, largely derived from its high penetration through matter. Neutrons penetrate coatings and thick corrosion layers and reach into the bulk of a material without substantial attenuation, a property that makes t...

Neutron and synchrotron X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence and FTIR were used to examine a Corinthian-type bronze helmet which is now on display at The Manchester Museum, UK. This type of helmet was manufactured out of a single piece of bronze, probably on a rod-anvil, and like all body-armour it was made to measure. Neutron diffraction sampling...

Synchrotron radiation Fourier transform infrared (SR-FT-IR) microspectroscopy represents an advance over conventional FT-IR spectroscopy because it gives a higher signal/noise ratio at the highest spatial resolution due to the high brightness and collimation of synchrotron radiation. It has been successfully applied to the study of ancient painting...

We have studied the mineral composition of the gloss and the ceramic body of three pieces of Attic Greek pottery by applying the technique of high-resolution powder diffraction using synchroton X-rays. The measurements were performed on Stations 2·3 and 9·1 at the Synchrotron Radiation Source, Daresbury Laboratory. High quality powder patterns from...

Following the successful identification of at least two different family groups in Grave Circle B using facial reconstruction (BSA 90 [1995], 107–36), a pilot project was carried out at Manchester to identify, analyse and match 22 DNA samples from burials in the Grave Circle. The first step was to determine whether ancient DNA has survived, as prov...

The faces of seven skulls from Grave Circle B were reconstructed by the Manchester team, as an exercise in using the technique of facial reconstruction to look for family relationships on the basis of facial resemblances among the three or four burial groups within the circle. Similarities were noted between Ζ59 and Γ51, from early and late phases...

In 1987 the Manchester team made casts of the skulls of the priest and priestess discovered at Anemospilia (Archanes) by J. A. and E. Sakellarakis, and after careful medical study—which showed that the priestess suffered from anaemia as well as halitosis—reconstructed their faces, according to the technique used on the skull from tomb II at Vergina...

A wine amphora found inside a sarcophagus from a cemetery site in Cyrene, Libya contained ten species of fossil land snails. The artifacts within the sarcophagus suggest an age between 475 and 375 BC indicating a period c. 150 years after the city was established by the Greeks. The majority of the land snails are species found today within the regi...

A good story bears retelling many times, and an appreciative audience will delight in debating its finer points; each participant is – of course – always convinced that only his memory, his understanding, of what the author said is the correct one.

At the University of Manchester techniques of facial reconstruction have been considerably refined, and are being applied in a complementary fashion in both forensic and archaeological contexts. Among excavated skulls to have been reconstructed, that found by Andronicos in the Great Tumulus at Vergina has achieved considerable renown, if not notori...

In 1957 the team from Pennsylvania University Museum excavating at Gordion in Phrygia entered the wooden burial chamber in the “Midas Mound”, the largest of the tumuli that dot the plain of the Sakarya. Inside they discovered the body of a man of 60–65 years, 1·59 m. (5′ 2½″) tall, lying on a bed, and surrounded by over 350 bronze vessels and ornam...

Because the techniques and the approach described in this paper are perhaps unfamiliar to readers of this Journal, we offer a short introduction on the background to the project. In 1979, after working on the Egyptian mummies in Manchester as part of the Manchester Museum Mummy Research Project, one of us (R. A. H. N.) felt it would be interesting...

While piecing together information on some of the copies of the Athena Parthenos for the recent congress in Basle, I looked again with slightly wiser and perhaps sadder eyes at a small terracotta from the collections of the Manchester Museum that I had published in this journal some eleven years ago ( plate XII b ). I found her interesting because...

The Free-Standing Sculptures of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. By WaywellG. B.. 28 × 22·5 cm. Pp. xviii + 318 + 62 figs. + 46 pls. London: British Museum Publications, 1978. £45·00. - Volume 59 Issue 2 - A. J. N. W. Prag

After the abandonment of the Iron Age settlement during the third quarter of the seventh century, the area of Parco San Stefano was used as a cemetery. As has been described above, in the course of the bulldozing undertaken prior to the extension of the quarry, burials were found and this led to the rescue excavation of 1970. Supervision began afte...

In the Department of Archaeology of the Manchester Museum is a terracotta figurine that is clearly intended to be a model of the Athena Parthenos of Phidias. Though very worn, and of undistinguished provincial Roman workmanship, a'description of the figure, and some comments upon it, are offered here because it perhaps sheds light on all our other...