Archaeology: Fragment of 13th C mural showing St Peter found at Plovdiv’s Great Basilica site

Archaeologists working at the site of the Great Basilica in Plovdiv, the largest early Christian church found on the Balkans, have uncovered a fragment of a mediaeval mural believed to depict St Peter.

The fragment is estimated to date to the 13th to 14th centuries.

It was found in the hitherto unexamined northern nave, not far from the city’s Roman Catholic church close to the intersection of Maria Louisa and Tsar Boris III boulevards.

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Archaeologists accidentally discover dozens of ancient shipwrecks at the bottom of the Black Sea

The Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project had intended to find out how quickly water levels rose in the Black Sea after the last Ice Age, but the team ended up discovering a whole lot more than they had bargained for, Quartzreports. While examining the seabeds, the scientists found dozens and dozens of previously undiscovered shipwrecks — 41 in all.

"The wrecks are a complete bonus, but a fascinating discovery, found during the course of our extensive geophysical surveys," the project's principal investigator, Jon Adams, said in a statement.

Many of the shipwrecks were in spectacular condition due to the low oxygen levels that exist nearly 500 feet below the surface. "Certainly no one has achieved models of this completeness on shipwrecks at these depths," Adams said.

Many of the ships date back to the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. The researchers are using photographs to build 3D models of their finds and hope tolearn more about "the maritime interconnectivity of Black Sea coastal communities and manifest ways of life and seafaring that stretch back into prehistory." Jeva Lange

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Unusual Medieval Graves Found In Poland

Ten monumental tombs discovered in Sasiny (Podlaskie), initially believed by archaeologists to contain Neolithic burials, were found to be less that 1,000 years old, and made by Christians.

The cemetery in Sasiny is located in the northeastern Poland. In the eleventh through to the thirteenth centuries, the area regularly changed hands between the Piast princes and the Rus princes.

"All members of the local community were buried in the study graveyard - both poor and rich, including the elite. Funeral rites were common to all. Each of the deceased was placed in a large burial structure, the edges of which was marked by big boulders," explained Dr. Michał Dzik from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Rzeszów, who heads the excavations in Sasiny.

The graves examined by archaeologists have almost rectangular outlines. The space surrounded by boulders, some of which weigh over half a ton, was filled with several layers of unworked stone, which covered the deceased, who was placed in a wooden coffin or covered with a shroud. Structures of this type have extensive size - on average 5 by 3.5 m.

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