2009 In Review, Part 1

It’s that time of year again, when bloggers around the globe are recapping their favorite stories of 2009. This year, in looking back, it seems that some of our biggest news stories focused on religious freedoms and discrimination. We also saw a lot of shifts in how people viewed religion as a whole. Finally, there were a number of issues surrounding the separation of church and state, particularly when it came to religion in public schools. This year, to start off the recap, I’m going to focus on something a little lighter — some of the absolutely amazing archaeological discoveries that were revealed this year. All were of significance in that they helped to educate us about how our ancestors lived hundreds – and even thousands – of years ago.

This year was an important one in the world of history and archaeological research. In January, a Catholic church in Italy revealed that it was also the home of a large Pagan mosaic. Researchers were digging around under the Cathedral of Reggio Emilia when they found the mosaic, which measures about 140 square feet, and was probably part of the home of a wealthy Roman citizen. Also in Italy, a large statue of Mithras was found in Rome, when smugglers were attempting to get it out of the city for sale on the black market.

In the United Kingdom, there were a number of amazing discoveries this year as well. Iron Age butter was discovered in an Irish peat bog — still in its original packaging — and a record-setting hoard of gold was found under a Staffordshire farmer’s field. It was a good year for sacred circles and tombs, too… archaeologists located the remains of a 4,500-year-old wooden structure at the Hill of Tara in County Meath, Ireland, and a pair of previously unknown burial sites were found near a car park in Hampshire. A site called Bluehenge was located in Wiltshire, not far from Stonehenge, and the Isle of Skye presented us with a half dozen slab-lined graves.

Also this year, we learned about the grave of the Middle East’s oldest shaman, who was buried in a mountainside cave in northern Israel. Hidden goddess statues were found in the city of Hippos, and are believed to represent Aphrodite. Medieval dog sacrifices taught us a bit about the practices of Eastern European Pagans from the Middle Ages, and similar seventeenth-century witch bottles were found in both Greenwich, England, and under a car park in Staffordshire.

We’ll talk more about some of the most interesting stories of 2009 in the next post, where we’ll look at some of the legal cases that made headlines in the world of religious news.

2009 In Review, Part 1 originally appeared on About.com Paganism / Wiccan on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 09:49:13.