Post Category : Archaeonerdism Archaeotourism
Field School in Belize – Trent University
By Corey Cookson on December 18, 2017
One of the most common questions that I get asked is what is the coolest thing I have ever found. My default answer is this censer fragment that my excavation team unearthed back in 2009 as part of the Trent University field school in Belize, at the Minanha site.
My team was working on the excavation of a house platform. The house platform was part of a small complex of households near a ceremonial and political centre. the site was abandoned around 1000 years ago at the end of the Classic era of the Maya civilization.
One of the first things found during the excavation was a small cylinder seal next to the large tree root (pictured above). Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the artifact but I still have my notes from the field school and a quick sketch that I did.
As we continued to excavate through different occupation layers, we came upon an assemblage of broken pottery sherds. We were careful to map each artifact before we removed them from their context (as indicated by the nails at each corner of the artifacts). We could see there were holes in the ceramics but had no idea of what was waiting once we turned it over.
When the sherd with the holes was turned over, the entire team got really excited and gathered around while the professor, Gyles Iannone, explained what we found. The artifact was part of a large incense burner. When incense was burned within the vessel, the smoke would come out the holes in the censer. The smoke flowing out of the mouth likely created a very stunning effect. After the field school was completed, the graduate students catalogued the artifacts and re-assembled the censer (pictured below).
Related Posts
By Braedy Chapman
July 2, 2023
Top sites of 2022, BC edition
Field operations in British columbia 2022 marked Ember Archaeology’s first year of significant field operations in British Columbia. Our BC crews conducted a number of sizable wildfire-related projects for the BC Ministry of Forests over the course of the season, ultimately surveying hundreds of kilometers of constructed fireguards and fuel reduction developments. These were nearly
Keep Reading
By Megan Williams
June 1, 2023
The Quarry of the Ancestors
Alberta Oil sands The Alberta oil sands has seen it’s fair share of media attention over the last few decades! Unfortunately, most of it has not been positive… In this blog, we are going to discuss an amazing archaeological discovery from the Alberta oil sands, and how these findings have shaped our knowledge about prehistory
Keep Reading
By Tim Allan
May 1, 2023
Finding Tertiary hills clinker in alberta
Needle in a haystack Tertiary Hills Clinker is a natural rock that is formed when coal seams burn underground and melt the surrounding sediments. Lightening and forest fires can ignite exposed seams of coal, which burn hot enough to turn clay and sand into a near-glass like material that is suitable to make stone knives,
Keep Reading