Archaeologists were initially baffled when the strange shaped object was excavated in the 1760s from the ruins of the Villa dei Papiri, a grand country house in the Roman town of Herculaneum. Now the mystery of its purpose have been solved - and researchers were stunned to find the object was a sundial.
Eight hundred years ago, in a hardscrabble farming community on the outskirts of Troy, once one of the fabled cities of the ancient world, a 30-year-old woman was laid to rest in a stone-lined grave. However, the skeleton was hiding a secret - two calcified nodules, each the size of a strawberry, nestled at the base of the chest, just below the ribs.
Ian Leitch previously pictured beside a reconstruction of a 5000 years old bronze age burial at an archaeology exhibition at Northside Shopping Centre. (2903PG20)