March/April 2022 Issue

TASMANIA: In the 1850s, a convict serving time at the Port Arthur penal colony surreptitiously buried a stash of silver shillings in a clay floor. He was never able to retrieve his treasure, which was recently found during excavations in one of the prison complex’s metal-casting workshops. At the time, prisoners were strictly prohibited from carrying money, but one crafty inmate seems to have managed to dispossess an unsuspecting guard of his cash, which was equal to about a week’s pay.

ETHIOPIA: The Gedeo Zone in southern Ethiopia is home to Africa’s largest concentration of megalithic stone stelas. Some of the 10,000 carved monuments reach heights of 20 feet. New dating of the monoliths found at the site of Sakaro Sodo indicates that they were created around the 1st century A.D., more than 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Experts believe the stelas may have served as burial markers or to commemorate the transfer of power from one generation to the next.

OMAN: An ancient game board was unearthed in the ruins of a 4,000-year-old site near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in the Qumayrah Valley. The rectangular stone slab is marked with spatial divisions and small depressions or cup holes and resembles other games known from sites across the ancient Near East and India. Evidence of copper smelting and the settlement’s strategic location along major trade routes suggest that it may have been an important commercial center during the Umm an-Nar period.