Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew, and here are four top news stories from this past week of Archaeologica.  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

The first major analysis of obsidian artifacts from the central temple of the Aztec Empire reveals changes in the sources over time that could reflect the consolidation of power.  A unique study of Viking attitudes toward pregnancy shows how people then thought of pregnant women and their unborn infants.  Excavators in Iraq surprisingly came upon a big fragment of an ancient relief depicting an Assyrian king.  And a tomb thought to contain the father of Alexander the Great turns out to have quite different occupants.

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And now, here’s Laura Kennedy with the Audio News from Archaeologica!  We hope you find this to be a valuable part of your day!

Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Kennedy, and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news for the week of May 11th through the 17th, 2025.

Our first story this week comes from Mexico City, where researchers are piecing together the history of obsidian use during the Aztec Empire.

As reported by Tulane University, recent analysis of obsidian artifacts excavated from the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan [ten-OHCH-teet-LAHN] shows that the volcanic glass came from a wide range of sources throughout the region, including areas well beyond the empire’s borders. 

A team from Tulane University and the Proyecto Templo Mayor [mah-YOHR] in Mexico of the National Institute of Anthropology and History studied 788 obsidian artifacts recovered from Templo Mayor.  This is the main temple and core of the Aztec Empire, located in what is now Mexico City.  Their analysis revealed that 90 percent of the obsidian came from the Sierra de Pachuca [pah-CHOO-kah]source.   This source contains green obsidian preferred by the Aztecs.  The other 10% came from at least seven other locations, some of which were in regions outside Aztec control.

The evidence suggests that the Aztecs developed a complex trading network.  This network was not totally dependent on conquest, but required established routes, sources and cooperation.  According to lead author Diego Matadamas-Gomora and PhD candidate in Tulane’s Department of Anthropology, these revelations will help them map out the evolution of trade throughout Mesoamerica and the political relationships and influences within the region.

Researchers analyzed the artifacts with portable X-ray fluorescence, a non-destructive method that identifies the geochemical fingerprint of each artifact.  They uncovered obsidian sourced from several locations in central and western Mexico, such as Otumba, Tulancingo [TOO-lahn-SING-go], Ucareo [OO-kar-AY-oh], and El Paraíso [pahr-EYE-zo].

They divided the artifacts into two basic categories: ceremonial artifacts and construction artifacts.  The miniature weapons, jewelry and inlays for sculptures came from the green, Sierra de Pachuca obsidian.  The obsidian used for tool production and available to the general public came from alternative sources.

The team also discerned shifts in obsidian use over the city’s history, from its early phase around AD 1375 to its fall in 1520.  The early phase artifacts demonstrated various sources for both ritual and everyday obsidian items.  By AD 1430, when the Aztecs solidified their power, ritual items were almost entirely sourced from the Sierra de Pachuca obsidian.  Archaeologists suggest that this development indicates a distinct standardization of religion and that the religious and political rulers had more central control within the city.

Their research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents the largest comprehensive study of obsidian artifacts at the site.

Next, we go to the United Kingdom, where researchers are analyzing narratives, artifacts and burial sites to understand perceptions of pregnancy during the Viking age from AD 800 to 1050. 

As reported by The Conversation, scholars with the Body-Politics Project, hosted by the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester [LESS-ter], have studied stories from Old Norse sources, a pendant and burial records to collect a wide range of depictions of pregnancy among the Vikings.  These strands of evidence are helping researchers better understand what they call “womb politics,” as well as gender, the concept of the human body, and sexual politics throughout the Viking age.  

The team examined three different sets of evidence.  In the first set, they analyzed sagas and legal texts from the immediate descendants of the Vikings.  Along with words used to describe pregnancy, like “bellyful,” “unlight,” and “not whole,” researchers found that high-status unborn children were sometimes already integrated into the webs of kinship, alliance, duties, and feuds that made up Viking societies.  The team suggests that some of these texts could point to the possible belief in fetus personhood.  Conversely, they also looked at a legal description that plainly identified pregnant slaves as having a defect.

In the second set of evidence, the team studied a pendant with the figurine of a pregnant woman. The pendant was originally found in a woman’s burial site in Sweden.  The image seems to show a woman embracing her belly.  Such a carefully handcrafted item indicates the potential value some societies placed on pregnancy and unborn children.  At the same time, the woman on the pendant wears a martial helmet, which is consistent with other narratives researchers found with pregnant women engaged in violence. 

The third set of evidence came from obstetric deaths among Viking burial records.  The team identified only fourteen possible mother-infant burials, but they found that newborns were frequently buried alongside adult men and postmenopausal women.  They propose that these discoveries imply that some Viking societies didn’t always regard a mother and her child as unified.  The suggestion is that, in some cases, infants may have been used as grave goods. 

Their research, published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, demonstrates a lack of uniformity in how Viking-age societies understood and viewed pregnancy.  Some of the most significant discoveries point to the public and integral role of pregnancy in familial, social and political life.  

The team believes that further studies will help them better outline how gender roles were perceived among a population that is often noted for its exclusively masculine characteristics. 

Our third story turns to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh, in the modern city of Mosul, Iraq, where archaeologists have unearthed a new and rare relief. 

As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, an archaeological team from Heidelberg University in Germany has uncovered a large relief that depicts Assyrian gods alongside Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian empire.  They uncovered the fragmented, stone image while excavating the North Palace’s throne room.  It measures eighteen feet by ten feet and weighs 12 tons.   

Researchers have identified the images on the stone slab as King Ashurbanipal.  Ashur, Assyria’s national god, and Ishtar, a goddess of war and sex, stand on both his sides.  Other images on the stone depict fish and scorpion deities, suggesting that a large sun disk would have been mounted above the relief. 

Assyria began as a dependency of Babylonia, but it became a major power in the historic Middle East.  The Assyrian empire ruled northern Mesopotamia from the fourteenth to the sixth century BC before falling to the Greeks.  The Assyrian Empire fell a few decades after Ashurbanipal’s death.  Three centuries later, the Greeks probably settled Nineveh.  Researchers suspect that the Greeks also broke and buried the relief.  Nineveh was the Assyrian Empire’s largest and most concentrated urban center, and it’s where the North Palace was built during Ashurbanipal’s rule between 668 and 627 BC. 

Researchers have been exploring Nineveh for many years.  In the late 1800s, British researchers excavated some of the city’s North Palace.  They uncovered some large and detailed reliefs, but they didn’t uncover ALL the reliefs.  

The team has been excavating the site since 2022. According to Aaron Schmitt, lead researcher and archaeologist at Heidelberg University in Germany, this is the first Assyrian relief known to include depictions of major deities.  The team thinks it was carved in the seventh century BC and likely placed in a niche across from the entrance to the throne room. 

Although archaeologists find the burial of this relief to be out of the ordinary, they hope to gain further clarity on its seeming erasure with later excavations.  

We end this week in northern Greece, where a new study may have unraveled the mystery behind a tomb once thought to have contained the father of Alexander the Great.

As reported by Live Science, researchers at The Great Tumulus of Vergina [vr-JEE-nah], the royal burial complex of the Macedonian kings, announced that analysis of the teeth and bones found in the famed Tomb I reveal the remains of a young man and woman along with six infants.  This new evidence refutes the long-held belief that the tomb belonged to Phillip the Second, who was the father of Alexander the Great. 

Radiocarbon dating shows that the two adults lived between 388 and 356 BC and died between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.  Researchers believe that these results mean that the tomb, which was sealed off after the burial, could not have been that of Phillip the Second, who was assassinated at the age of forty-six in 336 BC.  They also found that the infants were interred alongside the adults sometime between 150 BC and AD 130, when Romans controlled the region.  In ancient times, robbers stole from the tombs, leaving behind openings.  People who lived in the area saw the openings and decided to use them as burial places for infants.  

The research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, details how the team used strontium and stable carbon analysis of the remains to uncover the identities of these adults.  According to Yannis Maniatis, a researcher at the laboratory of archaeometry at the National Center of Scientific Research Demokritos in Greece, the man was likely a royal member of the Argead [AHR-gee-ad] house, which ruled the Kingdom of Macedonia from 700 to 310 BC,, and the woman likely came from Pella, the Macedonian capital.  Researchers point to Alexander the Second and Perdiccas the Third as possible identities for the male remains. 

Originally, some archaeologists believed that Tomb One, uncovered in 1977, contained Phillip the Second, because other tombs in the complex were designated as belonging to various relatives of Alexander the Great.  However, a larger contingent of scholars believe he was buried in Tomb Two. 

Researchers indicate that they still have much to learn from the Macedonian burial complex, but hope that they can begin to identify its occupants more accurately. 

That wraps up the news for this week!

For more stories and daily news updates, visit Archaeologica on the World Wide Web at www.archaeologica.org where all the news is history!  Also, be sure to check out our growing subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, at heritagetac.org!

I’m Laura Kennedy and I’ll see you next week!