
##4070650 Ten years ago , I wrote a book that argued for a new vision of Southwestern prehistory : Chaco Meridian : Centers of Political Power in the Ancient Southwest . I still believe its premise--that something I call the Chaco Meridian played an essential role in the life of the ancient Puebloan people--but it 's due for an update , even if many of my colleagues still are n't completely convinced of the idea . <p> The Chaco Meridian is a north-south line at approximately 108 degrees longitude . Beyond the fact that all longitudes converge at the North Pole , there 's nothing inherently important about 108 degrees . In the American Southwest , however , the line runs through or very near several extremely important sites : Chaco Canyon , Aztec Ruins ( both in New Mexico ) , and Paquim ( just across the border in the Mexican state of Chihuahua ) . Each of these sites , in its time , was by far the biggest and almost certainly most important regional center in the Southwest . The population of each was probably between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large for the Southwest . And they followed one another as major centers in a tight sequence : Chaco from A.D. 850 to 1125 , Aztec from 1110 to 1275 , and Paquim from 1250 to 1450 . <p> It occurred to me that the bim-bam-boom sequence of Chaco , Aztec , and Paquim may have had something to do with history . That is , the lockstep series of rises and falls was probably not a matter of chance . Perhaps the collapse of one city somehow set off the rise of the next , with ruling elites moving from the old capital to the new . <p> We already had a pretty good idea that Chaco and Aztec were historically related . Lewis Henry Morgan , the " father of American anthropology , " figured that out in 1878 . The tree-ring dating was precise--Aztec immediately followed Chaco . Both had " Great Houses , " massive , geometrically exact , multistory buildings that transformed conventional Pueblo architecture into monumental edifices . The ancient Pueblo people left us another compelling clue : the " Great North Road , " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ north from Chaco Canyon to Aztec Ruins , just a hair east of 108 degrees longitude . My friend and colleague John Stein , of the Navajo Nation Chaco Protection Sites Program , established that many of the linear Chacoan features we called " roads " were , in fact , monuments--history written on the land--linking later Great Houses back to earlier ones . Stein called these " roads through time . " The Great North Road was a sacred pathway that connected 11th-century Chaco Canyon to 12th-century Aztec Ruins . <p> Back in the mid-1990s , several of my colleagues and I thought that Chaco was the capital of the 11th-century Pueblo world , and that in the 12th century Chaco 's rulers moved due north and rebuilt their city at Aztec . That sort of thing is not unknown in human history . Early Chinese capitals shifted following the principles of feng shui , the practice of aligning structures to ensure a harmonious flow of energy . <p> But ours was a minority view . Terms like " capital " and " city " and the idea of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were not welcome in Southwestern archaeology . Most of us working then were trained to study the Pueblo past not as history , per se , but as a series of human adaptations to the sometimes difficult , often changing Southwestern environment . We were trained to treat ancient Pueblo societies like cultures in laboratory petri dishes : sprinkle the right amount of rainfall on the proper soil and up popped pueblos . That approach made a certain amount of sense , of course , because the Southwest is indeed a desert . <p> This emphasis on adaptation and environment led archaeologists to think locally : almost every cultural development was a local adaptation to the immediate environment . In retrospect , I think we overemphasized the desert and undervalued the history--the political decisions made by rulers ( and , perhaps , challenged by commoners ) that may or may not have made adaptive " sense . " <p> There was far more to the ancient Southwest than a grim struggle for food . Life at Chaco , for example , was not a precarious , hand-to-mouth existence . The Chacoans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( many from distant lands ) and important people ( perhaps a few from distant lands ) . Scarlet macaws from the Maya jungles and copper artifacts from western Mexico shared pride of place with elaborate seashell jewelry and eye-popping quantities of turquoise from faraway mines . You ca n't do that sort of stuff if you 're wondering where your next meal is coming from . And the city lasted two centuries as the economic , political , and ritual hub of a region the size of Ireland--definitely bigger than a petri dish . <p> In 1995 , I sat down to write an article , or maybe a book , arguing that our separate petri dishes actually existed in one large terrarium , a single ecosystem in which history--human political decisions--was more important than adaptation to the environment . The terrarium was really big : North America . And there was plenty of history south of the border , with Mesoamerican kings and wars and rises and falls . For some : reason , we seldom thought about those kinds of historical events in New Mexico . <p> I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North Road as an illustration of large-scale history in the ancient Southwest , so I set out a big map of the region and dotted in a few key sites . I knew Paquim would come up ( one old theory held that Chaco was actually a colony of Paquim ) , but it was off my map . The latitude and longitude put it--whoops ! --due south of Chaco and Aztec . Hmm . The more I thought about it , the more I thought it might be possible the sites were connected . The old theory that linked Chaco and Paquim was based on good data but bad dating . With new dating , it became clear that Paquim came long after Chaco ( so Chaco could n't have been a Paquim colony ) , but immediately after Aztec . If they could move Chaco to Aztec , why could n't they move Aztec to Paquim ? <p> Well , it is a long , long way . The paltry 50 miles between Chaco and Aztec scared most Southwestern archaeologists--it was way bigger than our standard petri dish . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that far ! To me , that was part of its appeal . The whacking great distance from Aztec to Paquim reduced Chaco-to-Aztec to a chip shot . The idea was too good to pass up , so I wrote a book , Chaco Meridian , in which I argued that ruling elites from Chaco Canyon first moved north to Aztec Ruins and a century later south to Paquim , reestablishing their capital along 108 degrees longitude , a north-south line that linked the old with the new . <p> The press liked Chaco Meridian because it was novel , it was news . Many of my archaeologist colleagues , however , resented it because the press liked it . But when the academic reviews appeared , they were surprisingly good . I expected my argument to be shredded , but of the dozen reviews I 've seen in journals , from American Anthropologist to Journal of Field Archaeology , only one was negative and it was very polite . ( I told the reviewer--an old mentor--that his review was " firm but fair . " ) <p> Of course I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ objected to Chaco Meridian 's argument ( fair enough ) . My Paquim proposition in particular was roundly rejected by archaeologists working in Chihuahua , who had no use for Chaco elites . But even more archaeologists objected to the book 's breezy tone--much like this article . Not fair , but okay : I was n't writing for them , anyway ; I was writing to subvert their students , tomorrow 's professors . <p> In fact , the move from Chaco to Aztec has come to be accepted by most , but not all , archaeologists . So half of the original argument apparently convinced my colleagues . Far fewer bought my idea that the Chacoan elites eventually moved to Paquim . And there the matter seemed to rest . <p> BUT IN 2004 , a site far to the north , well beyond the points on the old Chaco Meridian , got me hopping-up-and-down excited again . I was driving to the Pecos Conference , a yearly gathering of Southwestern archaeologists , and had time to stop by the Animas-La Plata Project ( ALP ) . Just south @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done ahead of the construction of a dam and reservoir . Jim Potter , the project director for the cultural resources firm SWCA , Inc. , showed me around . I was immensely impressed by the size and complexity of the pit-house sites , which dated to the eighth century A.D. There was nothing in the ALP area immediately before the eighth century , and nothing after . It was a big--but short-lived--bang . <p> From the east end of the ALP area to the west end , a distance of some eight miles , there were more eighth-century sites than in any other area in the northern Southwest . It was a continuous blur of houses and villages : not of urban density , but taken together a very large , impressive settlement . In the middle of it all stood Sacred Ridge ( an old local name for the site ) . ALP excavators found things on Sacred Ridge that no one had ever seen at eighth-century sites , such as the 10-foot-wide base of a two-story tower . Nobody built towers in the eighth century ! The ALP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ era , and at its core stood phenomenal architecture . <p> I walked through the ALP sites and wondered where we were exactly . A glance at a map showed the area was due north of Chaco Canyon , due north of Aztec Ruins , and due north of Paquim . Well , not precisely due north--Sacred Ridge is actually a few miles east of Pueblo Bonito , Chaco 's biggest great house . ( As I argue in Chaco Meridian , we should n't expect modern precision from people doing naked-eye engineering with a string and a pole . ) I 'm pretty sure Potter and his colleagues were aware of that fact and , understandably , they do n't want to go there , given Chaco Meridian 's somewhat controversial reputation . But I do . <p> The ALP sites jogged my memory of another , even earlier big site , back at Chaco Canyon . The " Chaco " of Chaco Meridian was the grouping of stone-masonry Great Houses of the 11th and early 12th centuries , like Pueblo Bonito . But there had been strange doings at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sixth and early seventh centuries , Shabik'eschee Village and another unnamed pit-house site ( known as 29 SJ 423 ) flourished in the canyon . These sites were not visually spectacular ( scores of shallow depressions , each representing an ancient pit house ) , but they were big , indeed the biggest pit-house sites of their times in the Pueblo region . Each had more than 80 houses , and each had a Great Kiva , an underground ceremonial chamber that was a rarity in the sixth century . The next largest sites of that period had about 20 pit houses ( and those are hailed as prodigies ) , and 99 percent of the sites of Shabik'eschee 's time were made up of only one or two houses . <p> Shabik'eschee had been excavated and published in the 1920s . It was a famous anomaly , not a secret or a surprise ( like ALP ) . But between Shabik'eschee 's end in the seventh century and the late-ninth-century beginning of the Great Houses , Chaco Canyon was abandoned . This had always been an obstacle to linking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the newly excavated ALP sites filled that gap . In Chaco Meridian , I wrote that the center shifted , first north and then south . A picture was emerging in which that north-south movement reached even farther back in time . Each Pueblo era , from A.D. 500 to 1275 , had a single , central , large , complicated site , and each was on or very near the Meridian : Shabik'eschee/423 in the sixth and seventh centuries ; Sacred Ridge and the ALP complex in the eighth century , followed by the succession of Chaco , Aztec , and Paquim . All these sites were located from 107 degrees 50 feet longitude to 108 degrees--an east-west wobble of only a few miles on a line of 475 miles , from Sacred Ridge on the north to Paquim on the south . <p> Shabik'eschee , Sacred Ridge , Chaco , Aztec , and Paquim--five unique points in a line , each the biggest and most important site of its respective era . The chances of that happening by accident are miniscule . There has to be history--human decisions and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CENTURIES , the center of the Pueblo world bounced back and forth over ( only ) 80 miles , from Chaco Canyon to Sacred Ridge and back again--and then to Aztec Ruins . The southern extension to Paquim is still a matter of doubt and debate , I admit . But the new data from Shabik'eschee and the ALP complex give me some confidence that the Chaco Meridian was real , and that it meant something to ancient Pueblo people . <p> What exactly did it mean ? I do n't know--yet . To understand the Meridian , we need context . None of these sites sat alone in the Southwest . There were thousands of smaller Pueblo sites in every time period , and each period had its own complicated history and geography . Beyond the Pueblo region , there was the remarkable Hohokam civilization in southern Arizona , and of course there were Mesoamerican cultures far to the south . We will never understand Shabik'eschee , Sacred Ridge , Chaco , Aztec , and Paquim without looking far beyond the sites themselves and beyond the Southwest--think about the whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : COLORADO , NEW MEXICO , MEXICO <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : University of Colorado archaeologist Stephen H. Lekson at Chaco Canyon , an ancestral Puebloan site he believes is linked to three other major centers in the Southwest . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : American settlers thought it was built by Mesoamericans , but Aztec Ruins in northwestern New Mexico was a major 12th-century A.D. Puebloan town . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : The 14th-century A.D. mud-brick buildings of Paquim ( now in the modern Mexican state of Chihuahua ) stood up to four stories high . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Pueblo Bonito was one of the massive , multistory buildings called " Great Houses " that were first built at Chaco Canyon in the ninth century . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A large circular depression is all that remains of an underground ceremonial chamber at the pit-house site of Shabik'eschee in Chaco Canyon . <p> By Stephen H. Lekson <p> Stephen H. Lekson is a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder . His latest book , A History of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in early 2009 . <p> 
##4070652 IT 'S EASY TO THINK that the $13.2 billion-a-year spent in the United States on cosmetic enhancement amounts to an abnormal obsession with beauty . Noses are modified and breasts are reshaped to correct perceived flaws , but most procedures are aimed at making us look younger . Liposuction and tummy tucks remove the fat that accumulates with age and childbirth ; face-lifts and poisonous Botox injections paralyze and stretch wrinkled skin smooth . What a person hopes to see in the mirror reflects what his or her society values most , in our case , youth . <p> The ancient Maya also went to extreme lengths to transform their bodies . They invested vast amounts of wealth--and endured unspeakable pain--to make themselves beautiful . Through their artwork and the study of their physical remains we can begin to understand what motivated their search for physical perfection . What did ancient Maya men and women hope to see when they looked in their pyrite mirrors ? <p> Perhaps the men wanted to look like K'inich Janaab ' Pakal ( Pakal the Great ) , who ruled the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 612 until his death in 683 . Few ancient Maya remains have been as thoroughly studied as Pakal 's . His tomb within Palenque 's Temple of the Inscriptions provides a clear view of the standard of beauty to which ancient Maya men aspired . A stucco head wedged under his sarcophagus and a mosaic jade mask on his face convey idealized notions of his appearance . But what did he look like in real life ? <p> From my first visit to Palenque in 1975 , and throughout my nearly 30-year career as a Mesoamerican art historian , I 've been asking questions about this man who made Palenque a force to be reckoned with and then built his own great funerary pyramid , a ruler whose descendants worshiped him as a deity . <p> Pakal 's bones and teeth were recently restudied by Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina of the Autonomous University of Yucatan , and they can now tell us more about his physical appearance . First , Pakal was taller than most ancient Maya men , standing just over five feet four inches . And unlike most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of disease or malnutrition . Pakal received the typical cranial modification for someone born into an elite family . Shortly after birth , while his skull was still soft and growing , his mother applied a binding device to his forehead so that his cranium grew into a long , tapered form , smartly indented above the brow line . <p> As a king , Pakal was expected to personify several important deities . In stone carvings , his clothing and adornments reflect associations with the gods of rain and lightning , but his body was shaped to resemble the Sun and Maize gods . Pakal 's mother may have hung a bead between his eyes when he was a baby so that he would become permanently cross-eyed , a trait associated with the Sun God . <p> The Maya believed that because they had to squint to look at the sun , the Sun God also squinted back at them . Crossed eyes would have given Pakal the appearance of squinting . Also like the Sun God , he had filed teeth in the shape of the letter " T @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the center of his face . At the time of his death , Pakal had lost two molars and periodontal disease may have given him some pain , but the 24 teeth in his mouth had not a single cavity . <p> The earliest image of Pakal , a profile carving on an oval tablet found in his royal palace , emphasizes his flattened forehead . His simply rendered body reveals a slim physique . Pakal also had luxuriant hair , which he wore in thick , layered tresses trimmed to blunt ends in the front and tied in the back . His hair flopped forward like corn silk surrounded by leaves at the top of a healthy maize plant . Because each kernel on a cob requires a strand of silk to be pollinated , abundant corn silk pointed to a healthy cob of maize--and Pakal 's hair indicated his maize-like perfection . <p> Images of him suggest he wore a nosepiece to extend the long , tapering line of his nose into his forehead . How the nosepiece was worn is not known , but it seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeated captives depict them with prominent foreheads and round or snub noses , while the victorious lords are shown with the bridge of their noses meeting their foreheads in an unbroken line that sometimes extended all the way to their hair . <p> ACCORDING TO THE POPOL Vuh , the creation story of the K'iche Maya , creator gods formed human beings out of masa , the same maize dough the Maya still use to make tortillas and tamales . The typical maize plant yields one healthy ear ; others ripen only as nubbins or succumb to the maize fungus , Ustilago maydis . Like the plant , the Maize God surrounded himself with dwarves and hunchbacks , symbolizing imperfect ears of maize--embodiments of the ugly and deformed . Maya rulers also associated with dwarves and hunchbacks . <p> The Maize God lived for only a single season--growing and ripening , then harvested and planted once again as a tiny kernel in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth . Although Pakal surely grew wrinkled in old age , depictions of him and most Maya elites always retain a youthful appearance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he is shown with his hair styled like the Maize God and a burning torch protruding from his forehead like K'awiil , a lightning deity worshiped by Palenque 's royalty . Once they laid the dead king within the sarcophagus , his attendants placed a mask bearing the Maize God 's features made of small jade tesserae , like individual maize kernels , onto his face , giving him the appearance of eternal youth even in death . In this sense he was planted like a maize kernel at the base of the Temple of Inscriptions . Pakal both lived and died as the Maize God . <p> MAYA STANDARDS OF BEAUTY based on the Maize God applied to women as well as men . Pakal , for example , is shown on the lid of his sarcophagus wearing the Maize God 's jade skirt . It is the same skirt his mother is shown wearing on an oval tablet from the royal palace at Palenque . Women 's skulls were also bound into elongated shapes , and they filed their teeth or drilled holes in them to hold inlays @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Another fashion that men and women shared was painting their bodies with abstract designs . <p> In one of the extraordinary murals at Bonampak in southeastern Chiapas , a servant daubs paint on a royal dancer . Males glisten with red from the neck down , while women have red paint only on their faces . The complementary patterns appear to be one of many localized fashions in body painting that extended across the Maya world and that involved a variety of colors and designs . When Pakal 's body was prepared in an elaborate embalming process , his skin was treated with alternating layers of red and black pigments , most of which were concentrated on his trunk . As Tiesler and Cucina have determined , the red paint consisted largely of the toxic mineral cinnabar , or vermilion , with a little hematite and iron ore in the mix . <p> Blue-green was considered the most beautiful pigment , perhaps because it was associated with jade , the most valuable material of ancient Mesoamerica . Blue shades ( see " Sacred Maya Blue " ) were associated with sky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not only as the source of sustenance but also as the sacred material from which humans were formed . Unlike almost all else in the tropical rain forest , jade was permanent and thus made the ideal funerary offering . It evoked the Maize God , permanence , and the essence of beauty . Reduced even to a single bead , jade could germinate and yield the tender maize once again , the Maya believed . <p> BEAUTY WAS ENHANCED BY piling On elaborate jade jewelry or by wearing fashionable clothing . Paintings at both Bonampak and Calakmul , along with sculptures at Yaxchiln and Piedras Negras in southern Mexico , confirm women 's interest in fashion . Those of high status wore gauzy cotton dresses over contrasting underskirts , brocaded dresses cinched at the waist , and patterned shifts and blouses draped over wrapped skirts . By about A.D. 700 , women gained political and economic power , and this may have been reflected in their clothing . Two of the most prominent ancient Maya women , the queen of Yaxchiln , Lady Xook , and the queen of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patterns in their clothing . The stone carvings commissioned by Lady Xook for her building on the site 's main plaza show her wearing three different outfits in a conspicuous display of her taste in fashion . Beaded dots of face paint or scarification are similar to other artistic representations that symbolize elegant speech or song . <p> Both queens were somewhat hefty , a testament to their wealth and status . Most elites ate a refined diet , as their teeth reveal , including cacao , or kakaw , as the Maya called it . Cacao beans served as ancient Mesoamerica 's standard means of exchange . Eating chocolate was like eating money itself . Chocolate was one of the rare Maya foods rich in fat , so fat signaled wealth and power , if not beauty itself . <p> IMAGES OF BEAUTY also provided moral lessons for the Maya . Stylized funerary figurines from the island of Jaina , off the Yucatan Peninsula , show two typical examples of female beauty . One , probably a young Moon Goddess , emphasizes a voluptuous , youthful figure/often bare-breasted . Her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of blue pigment . Her hair is parted and twisted into a headdress of cotton cords , indicating her role as a patron of weaving ; her face is highlighted with pigment or tattooing , usually in a dotted pattern near the mouth . <p> Young and beautiful , the Moon Goddess frequently accepts the embrace of a companion . In some cases it is an anthropomorphic rabbit who was thought to live in the moon , but often the companion is a creator god depicted as an old man , whose collapsed toothless face is , like hunchbacks and dwarves , the antithesis of beauty . In some figurines he is seen lifting her skirt or touching her breast . Here the Maya artist seems to draw attention to the woman 's wayward behavior , perhaps as a moral commentary . <p> The second type of female figurine is more enigmatic . She wears a draped blouse over a wrapped skirt , and in many cases a heavy necklace that required a counterweight down her back . The front of her face is framed by sharply trimmed bangs . She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through a bead , hanging over her bangs . Her face is sometimes marked with prominent striations representing scars or tattoos extending from her lip line almost to her ears . She works at her loom , prepares food , or sits modestly with hands on the knees of her crossed legs . She is a paragon of industry and probably virtue , since she is never seen cavorting with old gods or the odd mammal . <p> BEAUTY WAS A WAY to display social , if not moral , value among the ancient Maya . The wealth they invested and pain they endured to create bodies that reflected their social beliefs make our modern-day obsession with beauty seem less excessive . Like us , the Maya indulged in self-deception about appearance , preferring to let artistic depictions conform to their ideals rather than reality . Although hearty and robust for an old man of 80 , Pakal 's depiction never aged ; he remained a youthful Maize God , just on the cusp of maturity . The Maya saw what the Maya wanted to see when they looked into their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few daubs of red paint , and the youthful vigor of agricultural fertility . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : An ancient Maya ruler checks his reflection in a pyrite mirror while an attendant applies red paint to his backside . On the far left , a woman wearing a star-patterned dress holds what could be the ruler 's death mask . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A stucco bust of Janaab ' Pakal shows his hair styled to look like the foliage at the top of a healthy maize stalk . His skull was artificially elongated to resemble the top of a corncob . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Pakal 's jade burial mask . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : These pieces of a mosaic mirror come from the city of Abaj Takalik in southwestern Guatemala . The mirror has lost its shine , but would have been a must-have accessory for the fashionable Maya nobleman or woman on the go . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A painted figurine from Jaina Island shows an aged creator god and the Moon Goddess in a lascivious embrace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the city of Yaxchiln portrays the powerful Lady Xook with tattoos or scars around her mouth to symbolize singing or eloquent speech . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A mural from the city of Calakmul depicts a woman wearing an expensive blue dress edged with a pattern of glyphs . Her servant wears only a plain gray dress . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : This dwarf figurine from Tikal , Guatemala , may depict the antithesis of beauty , but he would have been spiritually important as a companion of the Maize God . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A ruler named " he who scatters incense " gazes in a mirror and accepts an offering of cloth and food . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A stucco sculpture of Kan B'alam II , a king of Palenque , shows him wearing a headdress symbolizing the Maize God . <p> by Mary Miller <p> Mary Miller is the author of The Art of Mesoamerica and dean of Yale College . <p> 
##4070653 THE NORTH SEA deserves its tempestuous reputation . It pounds England 's eastern coast , reshaping and sometimes taking large bites from it . The medieval town of Dunwich ( DUN-itch ) thrived on that coast from the 11th to the 14th century . Built on fishing , shipbuilding , trade , and religious patronage , its economy was one of the largest in the land . Over the centuries , the sea ate away at the town , reducing it to its present state , a seaside village of fewer than 200 . Despite legends of a sunken city , the prevailing wisdom has been that the sea ground almost all of medieval Dunwich to sediment , and buried it or carried it away . Some divers have long suspected otherwise , as they occasionally encountered tantalizing clues such as stone blocks , but it was not until 2008 that there was proof , courtesy of multibeam and side-scanning sonar , that Dunwichs major buildings--churches , chapels , and monasteries--lay ruined but still in place below the whitecaps . However , because of the North Sea , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another planet . <p> Dunwich was probably the site of a Roman fort and Saxon settlement before it became a major port city . The Domesday Book , a great survey of English wealth in 1086 , listed it as one of the 10 largest towns in England , with three churches and yearly royal taxes of 68,000 herring . It was the seat of the first bishop of East Anglia , and at its height had 20 religious buildings , including homes for the Knights Templar and the monastic orders of the Blackfriars and Greyfriars--all in a square-mile town with a population between 3,000 and 5,000 . <p> But according to David Sear , a geomorphologist at the University of Southampton , " it was a bit of a duff place to build on , really . " The harbor area was often inundated , and the rest of the town was perched on a crumbly cliff 20 to 30 feet above a narrow beach . As early as 1086 , major losses of land had been documented . A cooling of the climate in the 13th century brought more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . A storm in 1287 claimed a quarter of the city , including three churches ; another in 1328 took hundreds of houses . " The problem with Dunwich is amplified because it started off so big , " says Sear . " It sort of grew too large in the wrong place . " Storms also blocked Dunwichs port , despite the citizenry 's best efforts to keep it clear , crippling its economy . The erosion claimed both land and population ; churches abandoned for lack of parishioners eventually dropped off the cliff . The last fragment of the town 's medieval prosperity , All Saints Church , toppled between 1904 and 1919 , and even today bones from its churchyard cemetery tumble out of the cliff face . " It is a haunting place , and on a winter 's day , one could say , a bit sinister , " says Stuart Bacon , an amateur archaeologist and expert on the area . " It is also a very romantic place with the sun shining and the city under the sea . " <p> Bacon learned to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city . " The North Sea is very hostile in all senses , he says . You can almost feel the hostility when you 're out there . " Sediment in the water means there is not enough visibility to read a watch or air gauge , but Bacon persisted and soon found the well-documented remains of All Saints , a tight scatter of large stone blocks a few dozen yards from the beach . He devised techniques to help him dive blind , feeling around with gloveless hands and a metal rod , determining what kind of stone he found by sound and vibration . But navigating and relocating sites were constant problems . " You 've got to imagine a site potentially occupying a square mile , into which you drop down and sort of fumble around in the dark until you 've found something , " says Sear . " And what 's amazing is that Bacon did actually find stuff . " <p> One day in 1973 , Bacon had a yard or two of visibility , the best he has ever encountered . He swam out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was hard to get a sense of the extent of them , but he believed they came from St. Peter 's , which fell from the cliff around 1680 . He found the site again several times over the years , encountered more stone , and retrieved artifacts , including a quarter-ton chunk of a tomb lid , now in the small Dunwich Museum . " All the time I was being told there was nothing there and I was proving the opposite , " he says . But there was no way to establish how much of a structure or the town itself survived , or relocate sites reliably . <p> SEAR IS NEITHER AN ARCHAEOLOGIST nor a diver . Rather , as a geomorphologist , he studies how sediments move in riverbeds or along the coast . " It 's one of those rare occasions where one 's passion and one 's research interests intersect , " he says . His fascination with Dunwich began when he was a child of five and his family vacationed there every summer . At low tide , he clambered on some exposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local legends , like the old smuggler 's tale that on stormy nights , the peals of Dunwich 's church bells can still be heard . <p> The assumption that the town 's ruins were gone , except for the more recently lost All Saints , was still common , despite Bacons finds . " That 's not an unreasonable assumption if you do n't know anything about sediment dynamics , " Sear says . The ruins of Dunwich , he thought , should still be roughly where they fell from the cliff because there was not enough wave or tidal energy to move massive pieces of stone and mortar . <p> In 2006 , Sear approached Bacon with the idea of cutting through the dark world with multibeam and side-scanning sonar , acoustic technologies that can provide high-resolution depth readings and some indication of the hardness of the seabed . Sear had the GeoData Institute at Southampton superimpose and stretch historic maps of Dunwich over images of the modern coastline to determine targets . He then contracted EMU Ocean Surveys to spend two days in May 2008 mapping the entirety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like mowing your lawn , " he says . <p> The first-ever 3-D map of the seabed off Dunwich showed that two-thirds of the medieval site is covered by thick sandbanks . Fortunately , a natural tidal channel cuts through the site , scouring out a sort of valley on the seabed . In this area , Sear identified a number of promising sites where hard material stood a yard or so above the soft sand . Religious buildings would have been among the only in town built with stone--a relatively rare commodity in that part of England--while the rest were made from timber . Two of the sites lined up with churches on Sear 's maps : St. Peter 's and St. Nicholas 's , which went over around 1480 . Most important , the survey provided GPS data , so the sites Bacon once stumbled across could be mapped and relocated . " The question was , could you make the reports of ruins into something coherent ? " says Edward Martin of the Suffolk Archaeology Service , which was not directly involved in the research . " That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survey . " <p> Working by feel , divers reported wall-like surfaces , flat stone , and beveled edges , and brought back samples with what appears to be mortar on them . Confident he has found the churches , Sear now has proof that such stone structures can remain in place and more or less together on active coastlines , and established a working method for places with miserable diving conditions . <p> THE OLDEST ACCURATE MAP of Dunwich dates to 1589 , and shows the location of St. Peter 's . However , by then several religious buildings and perhaps half the town were already gone . We know there were quite a lot of churches , but we do n't know the full extent of the town , " says Martin . " There 's about half of it missing and we know nothing about how it was formed , its arrangement . " <p> Sear is most interested in this period , the remains of which probably lie under the offshore sandbar , around 380 yards from the beach . Specifically , he wants to map the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ main church ( St. John 's , lost around 1540 ) , and harbor area . <p> To do this , he needs funds to test sub-bottom profiling equipment , which passes a sonic signal through soft material like sand to reflect off underlying stone . In addition , to examine St. Peter 's and St. Nicholas 's in more detail , Sear wants to use higher-resolution multibeam sonar and a Didson sonar device , a diver-held or submarine-mounted short-range sonar that can provide detailed images even in zero visibility , like night-vision goggles for a dark underworld . There could be anything down there--from artifacts to carved surfaces--and this technology is how they will find it . Designed for examining naval mines and ship hulls , the Didson system has yet to see wide use on archaeological sites , according to the manufacturers , but the eerie , high-resolution images it can provide suggest it soon will . <p> Peter Murphy of English Heritage , which provided some of the funding for Sear 's research , says that little work has been done on such fully submerged sites in England @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raise awareness of how coasts change over time . In that sense , the exploration of medieval Dunwich is perhaps a glimpse of the future of coastal archaeology , as ancient sites and even modern structures are increasingly subject to rising sea levels , increased storm frequency and intensity , and greater erosion . Techniques for getting a look at these zero-visibility sites--from metal bars to high-resolution handheld sonar--might become indispensable tools . What we lose in legends of sunken cities might come back as clear knowledge of the past . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Coastline <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Multibeam sonar shows clumps of hard material standing above the soft , sandy floor of a tidal channel . More of St. Nicholas 's , which toppled over the cliff around 1480 , may lie under the sand . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : The North Sea is not kind to divers . It is cold , inhospitable , and nearly pitch black . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : What divers can see of the lost churches , just 30 or 40 feet from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ An engraving and a series of photographs of All Saints Church illustrate the fate of most of the medieval city of Dunwich--a progressive descent over a cliff and into the North Sea . The last fragment of All Saints was relocated to the yard of a surviving 19th-century church . The rest lies under the waves . 1785 <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : 1903 <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : 1905 <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : 1912 <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : 1920 <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : In 1979 , diver Stuart Bacon found this quarter-ton chunk of a tomb lid . A life-size bronze knight once rested on it , but the stone had probably been salvaged from one church and reused in another . <p> by Samir S. Patel <p> Samir S. Patel is a senior editor at ARCHAEOLOGY . <p> 
##4070654 WHATEVER 19TH-CENTURY RAILCAR MAGNATE George Pullman took with him to the grave is likely to remain a mystery . Fearful that Labor-movement extremists would desecrate his corpse , Pullman left instructions that his lead-lined casket be covered in tar paper and asphalt , and laid in a massive vault of concrete reinforced with steel rails in Chicago 's Graceland Cemetery . Over this tomb stands a towering Corinthian column with the name " Pullman " carved in its base . Fortunately , the historical record beneath the other monument bearing his name , the town of Pullman , is far more accessible . In what is today Chicago 's far South Side , archaeologists are unearthing the remnants of a model community . Built to be " beautiful and harmonious , " it was intended to be a place where , in the words of its founder/strikes and other troubles that periodically convulse the world of labor would not need to be feared . " <p> " This site affords opportunities to study the daily life of workers as well as class distinctions in this richly textured 19th-century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professor and chair of DePaul University 's anthropology department . It is also important to the present-day residents of Pullman , many of whom are intimately acquainted with the town 's history and worked to save the neighborhood from demolition in the 1960s . " It provides a chance to examine a rare instance of a working-class community of today rising up to save itself from the wrecking ball , " she says . <p> Pullman was designed with 900 " worker cottages " made of solid brick , more than 95 percent of which are still occupied today . In the center of town was a grand complex of commercial and industrial buildings , anchored by a corporate administration building topped with an iconic wood-framed clock tower . The town was also artfully laced with parks and gardens . <p> The London Times was not alone in hailing Pullman as " the most perfect town in the world , " at least until a nationwide economic depression compelled the town 's founder to lay off one-third of his workforce and slash the wages of the remainder by an average of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homes , not to mention food and other necessities , workers walked off the job in the summer of 1894 . Their appeal to the fledgling American Railway Union , led by Eugene V. Debs , resulted in the union calling on its members to stop handling any trains that included Pullman cars . As Pullman all but monopolized passenger railcar operations , train traffic virtually came to a halt across the country . <p> Refusing to negotiate any kind of settlement , Pullman won the battle but lost the war . The strike petered out after a few months , due in no small part to aggressive intervention by the federal government . Public opinion , however , had turned against Pullman for his hard-line stance on his workers . A federal strike commission likewise laid much of the blame at Pullman 's doorstep , and the Illinois Supreme Court ordered him to sell off the residential sections of his town , his self-proclaimed " greatest work . " George Pullman died of a heart attack on October 19 , 1897 . His factory continued producing railroad cars until the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of industrial interests . <p> IN 1998 , a few years before DePaul launched an anthropology program with an emphasis on historical archaeology in Chicago , a homeless man had heeded the voices in his head that told him to set fire to the Pullman administration building . Although the clock tower was destroyed in the ensuing blaze , many of the original administration building 's 125-year-old masonry walls survived . Before reconstruction of the building began , site superintendent Mike Wagenbach wanted to make sure the effort would not destroy the sites subsurface historical record . In 2004 , DePaul visiting professor Bill Middleton took 16 students to Pullman to conduct targeted excavations at what is now the Pullman State Historic Site . <p> Middleton and his students found very little in the areas that would be impacted by the reconstruction , which allowed the work to proceed . The following summer , Baxter began working at the site . Laboring in the shadow of the recovering administration building , her 22 students spent five weeks learning to survey , map , excavate , record , process , and document @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the underground tunnel through which power from an immense Corliss steam engine--the most powerful in the world at the time--was distributed to the manufacturing buildings and steam heat was channeled to public buildings and select residences . <p> Pullman has proved to be a gold mine for industrial archaeology . The one-of-a-kind Corliss , standing 40 feet tall and weighing 700 tons , was a big hit at Philadelphia 's 1876 Centennial Exhibition , for which it was initially constructed . Housed in a glass-fronted building in Pullman , it was just as big an attraction there until it was cut up for scrap when the company was electrified in 1910 , about the same time it made the transition from manufacturing wooden railcars to those made of steel . <p> Baxter is equally interested in the sociology of the workplace . " It seems obvious , but it 's often overlooked in industrial archaeology . People actually worked in factories , " she says . In 1892 , Pullman employed more than 6,000 workers ; about one-quarter were American born , and the rest came from nearly 30 different countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her students to consider . <p> On this front , too , Pullman does not disappoint . Outside two of the remaining factory door openings of the administration buildings north assembly shop wing , which survived the fire , the DePaul students found food refuse and fragments of ceramic cups and plates . Baxter surmises that lunch breaks were informal affairs , much as workers today might step outside for a smoke . Even more telling are the differences between two separate break areas . In one , unmarked 19th-century whiteware and cuts of meat ( evidenced by the animal bones ) are of a distinctly cheaper quality than that found in the other , suggesting that workers may have socialized according to class . <p> Even within a town that claimed to promote Utopian ideals , there were significant distinctions among Pullman workers . Beyond ethnic and religious differences , highly skilled craftsmen , including woodcarvers , cabinetmakers , blacksmiths , brass finishers , millwrights , and patternmakers , earned top dollar while unskilled laborers earned , in many instances , less than half that . And where an employee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she could afford to pay in rent . High-wage earners tended to live in the largest , fanciest , and most expensive residences clustered around the town center . Low-wage earners lived in houses and multifamily dwellings , which , moving away from the town center block by block , grew steadily smaller , more plain , and less expensive to rent . The overall effect was a hierarchy of housing that roughly paralleled worker wages . <p> REGARDLESS OF THEIR PLACE in the town 's pecking order , workers would have passed by the largest and most ornate home in Pullman every day . Occupied by company manager H. H. Sessions , it was directly across the street from the main factory gate . According to an 1886 map , it was the only residence with a carriage house . A 1909 fire insurance map refers to the detached structure as a garage . Aside from one exceptionally poor-quality photograph , no other documentary evidence or living-memory exists of the two-story garage , though the house still stands . <p> Excavating the site--for many years an informal parking area for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refer to as the Sessions House--students discovered the previously undocumented limestone foundation of the carriage house . Measuring about 30 feet long by 20 feet wide , it bore a cutout large enough to receive power and steam from the Corliss engine , indicating that the building was heated . Befitting the buildings function , students found numerous **26;1408;TOOLONG artifacts , such as bits of horse tack and related finery . They also unearthed household items and remains of plumbing , suggesting a caretaker was in residence . <p> The most intriguing discovery , however , came before the students even started digging . Atop the site were heaps of displaced soil , which Baxter learned had come from the home of Kris Thomsen , two doors away . Like many Pullmanites , Thomsen can recite the history of his house chapter and verse , from the impeccably restored gem that it is today , to its central role as a speakeasy during Prohibition , to its original function as the home and office of John McClean , the company physician . In preparation to install footings for a new back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Thomsen 's contractors excavated several buckets of soil and got rid of them where they thought no one would notice . <p> Fortunately , Baxter noticed and had her students sift through the dirt . In addition to an intact glass medicine vial , they found a cornucopia of personal items , including thimbles , glass marbles , hairpins , dish fragments , and even a small-caliber bullet casing . Most curious of all was what Baxter described as a disproportionately high concentration of buttons ; primarily shell buttons common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . <p> Company records reveal that McClean treated 4,155 injured factory workers over a 10-year period beginning in 1884--an average of more than one a day . The majority of injuries were serious enough to result in the loss of at least two days of work . " In your typical 19th-century industrial accident , " Baxter points out , " your arm or hand is caught up in a belt or some piece of heavy machinery and it 's not pretty . " McClean , a former Civil War battlefield surgeon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he would have had to cut the clothing off the injured limb . The cloth , disposed of with other household trash in the large backyard , would have rotted away over time , but the buttons remained as reminders of the danger inherent even in so advanced a manufacturing setting as Pullman . <p> ON A BRIGHT , UNSEASONABLY MILD SUNDAY in late July , Baxter scheduled a public archaeology day as part of the 2008 field school . The event was particularly meaningful to the present-day residents of Pullman , including those who rose up in the 1960s when a local chamber of commerce recommended demolishing the entire 19th-century town for real-estate development . " That really got everyone in an uproar , " remembers George Ryan , who has lived in Pullman every one of his 88 years . " We had this big rally , people were standing up , yelling . We loved our community . For us , there was no better place to go . " Pullman was and is still a largely working-class community , but over the years residents have obtained city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preserve several key public buildings . <p> Twenty-five people showed up for the public archaeology day to carry on the legacy of community activism . Each volunteer was assigned to one of several student-led teams excavating the foundations of walls of the well-documented Arcade Building , one of the nation 's first indoor malls . In its heyday , the three-story structure housed dozens of shops , along with a post office , the Pullman Bank , a 1,000-seat theater , and an 8,000-volume library . <p> Among the amateur archaeologists was Andy Bullen , who lives in one of Pullman 's original " executive " houses with his wife , Linda . He developed and maintains the Pullman Virtual Museum ( www.pullman-museum.org ) , an online digital catalogue of images from several of the region 's archives . " To see the size of the foundation stones gives you this gut sense of the scale and mass of the building that you ca n't really get from pictures , " he says . " To stand on the sidewalk where the federal soldiers stood before the strike of 1894--personally , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of the great chain of continuity . " <p> As part of the 2008 field school , Baxter also had her students excavate a couple of present-day backyards , finding the remains of a previously undocumented root cellar and a smattering of personal items , including doll parts and china sherds that hint at the lives of 19th-century Pullman workers and their families . <p> -But after two seasons , Baxter feels she 's just scratched the surface . " The story of Pullman is not a simple one . It 's not just the autocratic patriarch versus his unhappy workers . It 's much more complex than that , much more subtle . But I need to investigate more . " <p> Pullman residents ca n't wait for her return . " With more archaeology , more study and information , " says Arlene Echols , who loved every minute the students spent excavating the backyard of her worker 's cottage , " we 'll all be better stewards of our historic homes , better stewards of our present community . " <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , site director Jane Eva Baxter , Jennifer Norman , and Michael Marshall . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Shell buttons like these were found in the home office of company physician John McClean . <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : The town of Pullman ( ca. 1898 ) failed as a Utopian community . <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : The last-known photograph of its founder , George Pullman ( ca. 1895 ) . <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : The Arcade Building ( ca. 1885 ) , one of the first indoor malls in the United States . <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : An 1890s view of the interior of the Arcade Building . <p> PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : Pullman factory workers ( ca. 1949 ) labor on a railroad car . <p> by Arthur Melville Pearson <p> Arthur Melville Pearson is a freelance writer in Chicago . <p> 
##4070655 A SURPRISE DISCOVERY on the outskirts of Rome . Five containers hold unidentified bodies . Four of them are children . A woman 's body is missing . The police are called in to investigate . Who are these people ? What is their relationship to one another ? How did they die ? But this is not a modern crime scene , it 's a remarkable archaeological discovery--five ancient Roman marble sarcophagi that escaped looters for more than 1,800 years with their lead seals intact . Archaeologists are working with scientists from the police Crime Scene Investigation unit to tell the personal story of a wealthy suburban family , and a broader one about the ancient Roman countryside . <p> During renewal projects aimed at transforming an area of the town of Tor Cervara into a shopping destination , a bulldozer uncovered the tops of two underground tombs . Construction work stopped immediately and Stefano Musco from the Archaeological Superintendency of Rome was called to investigate . Inside the first , rectangular tomb , he found the cover and part of the base of a badly broken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , nine-foot-wide circular tomb , he saw niches holding five sarcophagi dating to the third century A.D. " To discover unviolated sarcophagi is particularly rare and very fortuitous for an archaeologist , " says Musco . Since the early 1990s , when several unopened second-century A.D. sarcophagi were discovered at Vallerano , south of Rome , none have been found in the countryside around the city . And according to Musco , very few examples have been found anywhere in Italy , the best known being the Tomb of the Athlete in Taranto ( " Tomb of the Unknown Jock , " ARCHAEOLOGY , September/October 2008 ) , and some from the late Etruscan period ( second century B.C. ) at locations such as Perugia and Cortona in central Italy . <p> Musco and his team cleaned and conserved the sarcophagi before taking them in specially constructed wooden crates to the National Museum of Rome to be studied . The five sarcophagi included a larger one for a mother and father and smaller ones for children . The largest held the remains of a 25- to 30-year-old man . The others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and nine years old . The wife 's body was missing and Musco thinks the broken sarcophagus in the other tomb may have held her remains , suggesting she died after her husband and children . Musco admits that when he first opened the parents ' sarcophagus , he was a bit disappointed , imagining that there would be grave goods inside . " I hoped that the man would have a ring on his finger that would attest to his high rank in society , " he says . Such a ring would normally be found on the finger of a noble , senator , or high-ranking official . " But since it was absent , " Musco adds , " I do not think this was a noble family ; he was not a consul or a magistrate . This family was tied to commercial production--they were rich enough to have a good burial , but not well off enough to include a lot of items in their sarcophagi . " <p> Musco 's team kept looking . In the sarcophagus of one of the children , probably a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , parts of a second doll , and a pair of child 's gold earrings . Fewer than 10 ivory dolls have been found in Italy from the entire Roman imperial period , and according to Maria Rosaria Barbera of the Archaeological Superintendency of Rome , this doll is particularly refined because it would have had movable limbs . It is also the latest Roman doll of such quality ever found . Ancient Roman dolls , like modern Barbie dolls , represent adult females , with hairstyles that imitate those of the imperial family , allowing Barbera to date the doll to the Severan age ( A.D. 193-235 ) . Because of high infant mortality rates in antiquity and a generally less sentimental view toward children than we have today , burials with valuable artifacts from a child 's life are extremely rare . Often items made from precious materials such as ivory would usually be passed on rather than buried with a deceased child . The other children 's sarcophagi were empty but for their bones . According to ancient-toy expert Emilia Talamo , the presence of the ivory dolls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Who was buried in the sarcophagi ? About a quarter-mile from the tombs are the remains of an ancient villa rustica , including walls that date the villa to the first century B.C. , wells , and irrigation channels . There were two types of villas in the Roman countryside--residential villas , where aristocrats spent time away from the city , and villae rusticae , working farms that produced fresh goods for the city . The extensive water supply makes it clear that the one at Tor Cervara was not a leisure property . " The people buried in the sarcophagi could have been the family connected to the villa . Perhaps they were the last members of a line who had lived in this area for a long time , at least from the first century B.C. to the third century A.D. , " says Musco . <p> The remains are currently being studied in both a laboratory belonging to the scientific investigative unit of the Carabinieri ( military police ) and another one supervised by David Caramelli of the University of Florence , an expert in ancient DNA . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state of preservation--like the sarcophagi , they were damaged by high acid levels in the ground . Giampietro Lago , the director of the investigative unit 's biology section , adds that there is a large risk of exchanging modern DNA from people handling the bones before they came to the lab . But Musco and Caramelli hope that with both teams working on the DNA , and with the police 's experience with complex crime scenes , they will eventually be able to identify the gender of the children , the family relationships between the deceased , and the causes of death . <p> Meanwhile , the sarcophagi are on display in the National Museum of Rome , which Musco visits from time to time . " I never forget that I have a mystery to solve about the identity of these people , " he says . " Sometimes I really think of them as my family . My dream would be to at least give them a name . " <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Workers stabilize the walls of an underground tomb in the Italian town @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( COLOR ) : The largest sarcophagus was intended to hold the bodies of a husband and wife , although when it was opened , only the husband 's body was found inside . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Archaeologists were shocked to discover that not only had the tombs in Tor Cervara never been broken into , but that the five sarcophagi had their lead seals intact . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : One of the children 's sarcophagi contained an extremely rare third-century A.D. ivory doll . <p> PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Lieutenant Elena Salata examines bone dust from one of the family members buried in the sarcophagi . <p> by Marco Merola <p> Marco Merola is ARCHAEOLOGY 'S Naples correspondent . <p> 