Davido's twins: Afrobeats star describes having 'beautiful' babies a year after son's death

The Afrobeats megastar opens up about the aftermath of his three-year-old son's tragic death

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Bafta Cymru: Hollywood star Luke Evans 'ecstatic' at win

The Hollywood actor dedicates his award to the "army" of people who put his BBC show together.

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Suzanne Somers: Three's Company actress dies aged 76

Somers was best known as one of the stars of the US sitcoms Three's Company and Step by Step.

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3,000-year-old diadem stele with unique iconography found in Spain

A late prehistoric carved funerary stele that upends the previous understanding of such figures has recently been discovered at the ancient necropolis of Las Capellanías, in Cañaveral de León, southwestern Spain. The stele is engraved with a human figure wearing a headdress and a necklace with two swords. The figure also has male genitalia,

The engraved slab is one of around 300 prehistoric stele discovered in Spain and Portugal since the first find in 1898. Believed to represent important, socially-prominent personages (elites, ancestors, legendary heroes and heroines), there are two iconographic types: the diademated and the warrior variety. Because the diadem figures are surrounded by objects relating to personal ornamentation, they have traditionally been interpreted as representing female figures. The warrior figures are surrounded by weapons (swords, shields, spears) and other indicators of high status like chariots and lyres. They’ve been traditionally interpreted as male. Only eight stelae actually had clear indicators of sex, however: four of the diadem variety had female sex characteristics, four of the warrior type had male genitals. The newly-discovered stele is a combination of both types.

The Cañaveral de León site is a monumental necropolis containing tumuli with cists (small stone ossuaries). It was discovered after a stele was unearthed there during road repairs in 2018. The first stele was a diadem type, engraved with a human upper body wearing a headdress and accompanied by a mirror, brooch, belt and comb. Analysis of the surface found traces of pigment indicating that the stele was coated in red before it was carved. The carving was done with pecking and abrasion.

After the discovery of the first stele, the site was intensively excavated. Archaeologists discovered it had originated in a large prehistoric necropolis at the site. The second stele was discovered in one of the tumuli in the summer 2022. It was a warrior stele from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200-900 B.C.), the first one on the Iberian peninsula ever discovered in its original context, confirming that the stele were primarily used as funerary monuments in late prehistoric necropoli. Of the 150 or so known warrior stele in the Iberian peninsula, all of the rest were found by accident, usually during agricultural work or road building, with no archaeological follow-up after discovery.

The third stela found just several days ago features a diadem and was discovered along with cremated human bones. “This sensational find not only corroborates once again and unequivocally the association of these stelae to funerary sites but also provides more clues that can overturn many earlier theories in relation to this particular piece featuring the diadem,” says García Sanjuán. “It was assumed that they represented only females, but the one found now depicts a man, as his genitals show. On the other hand, it is also surrounded by a stash of weapons, just like the warrior stelae.”

The archaeologist Marta Díaz-Guardamino, a stela specialist, agrees that “the discovery therefore questions previous interpretations concerning the gender of the figures represented, and confirms the conceptual and semantic relationship between the different types of stelae.” In other words, they are monuments that tell complex stories, known to the people from that cultural context.

“Las Capellanías is demonstrating that many of our assumptions were wrong,” adds Díaz-Guardamino. “These investigations mark a before and after in the scientific interpretation of these beautiful prehistoric sculptures, since they offer valuable empirical information facilitating the understanding of key aspects in the social organization of the communities that inhabited the Southwest of the peninsular during the second and first millennium B.C.”

3D scan of the first stele:

3D scan of the second stele:

* This article was originally published here

Defunded theatre has lost its way, says writer

Roger Williams says the theatre hasn't been producing enough work, as it loses its funding.

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Madonna's Celebration Tour reviewed: The Queen of pop brings out her crown jewels

The star is joined on stage by four of her children, who she thanks for saving her life this summer.

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Defunded theatre has lost its way, says writer

Roger Williams says the theatre hasn't been producing enough work, as it loses its funding.

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Madonna's Celebration Tour reviewed: The Queen of pop brings out her crown jewels

The star is joined on stage by four of her children, who she thanks for saving her life this summer.

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15th c. wood road found in Belgium

The wooden foundations of a 15th century road have been unearthed in Lier, a city on the outskirts of Antwerp, Belgium. The wood road emerged from under a modern street during city sewer works. The original sewers were built in the 1930s and by happy coincidence they were installed next to the medieval street instead of over it or crossing it, so the road was not exposed or damaged at that time.

The town of Lier grew around the hermitage of its most famous son, the 8th century saint Gummarus, on the banks of the Nete River. Settlements around the hermitage were destroyed in 9th century Norman raids, but the the relics and chapel of St. Gummarus made it a site of pilgrimage, drawing permanent construction and residents to the area. The earliest historical references to what would become Lier date to 970 A.D. The oldest surviving building is the Romanesque St. Peter’s Chapel, originally built in the 13th century. The medieval city center is located at the confluence of the Grote Nete (Big Nete) and Kleine Nete (Little Nete) where the two rivers come together to form the Nete. It was granted official municipal status in 1212, and by the end of that century it was a regionally important center of the textile trade.

Jan II, Duke of Brabant, gave the city the right to host a cattle market in 1309 and 30 years after that Lier was granted the right to host a cloth market as well. By the end of the 14th century, Lier’s cloth industry had expanded into an international trade. When the road was built in the 15th century, the focus of downtown Lier’s infrastructure had shifted from the earlier medieval religious structures — the hermitage, church, beguinage — to the economic and industrial — merchant halls, quays, bridges, roads.

The street was known from 16th century maps, but because in the Middle Ages the roads were made from perishable wood rather than the stone of far more ancient Roman roads, nobody expected to find any surviving remains. In this case, the wood was preserved by a thick layer of clay from alluvial deposits.

Archaeologists will now document the wooden foundations. “The new sewerage system will be installed under the road. These are not valuable objects in themselves and as soon as you start digging them up, they disintegrate,” Mayor Verwaest explained. He is keen to assure us that “everything has been inventorised, measured and photographed”.

* This article was originally published here

Freddie Flintoff agrees compensation over Top Gear crash

The ex cricketer came to the settlement with BBC Studios, after being hurt while filming the show.

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Freddie Flintoff agrees compensation over Top Gear crash

The ex cricketer came to the settlement with BBC Studios, after being hurt while filming the show.

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Man pleads guilty to stealing Wizard of Oz ruby slippers

Terry Martin thought the rubies in the slippers were real gems, but they were in fact made of glass.

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Man pleads guilty to stealing Wizard of Oz ruby slippers

Terry Martin thought the rubies in the slippers were real gems, but they were in fact made of glass.

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