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Ancient body prompts new theories
2006-12-04 12:24:02
A Roman sarcophagus discovered near Trafalgar Square could lead to the map of Roman London being redrawn.The limestone coffin containing a headless skeleton was found during excavations at St-Martin-in-the-Fields Church, central London.The find, which dates from around 410AD, lies outside what were the city walls of Roman London.Archaeologists previously thought Westminster possibly contained Roman roads but not sacred buildings.Read the rest of this article...
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Insignia of Emperor Maxentius Unearthed
2006-12-04 12:24:02
Archaeologists have unearthed what they say are the only existing imperial insignia belonging to Emperor Maxentius - precious objects that were buried to preserve them and keep them from enemies when he was defeated by his rival Constantine.Excavation under Rome's Palatine Hill near the Colosseum turned up items including three lances and four javelins that experts said are striking for their completeness - digs usually turn up only fragments - and the fact that they are the only known artifacts of their kind.Some of the objects, which accompanied the emperor during his public appearances, are believed to be the base for the emperor's standards - rectangular or triangular flags, officials said.An imperial scepter with a carved flower and a globe, and a number of glass spheres, believed to be a symbolic representation of the earth, also were discovered. Read the rest of this article...
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'Church of the Ark' found on West Bank
2006-12-04 12:24:02
Archaeologists claimed yesterday to have uncovered one of the world's first churches, built on a site believed to have once housed the Ark of the Covenant.The site, emerging from the soil in a few acres in the hills of the Israeli occupied West Bank , is richly decorated with brightly coloured mosaics and inscriptions referring to Jesus Christ.According to the team, led by Yitzhak Magen and Yevgeny Aharonovitch, the church dates to the late 4th century, making it one of Christianity's first formal places of worship."I can't say for sure at the moment that it's the very first church," said Mr Aharonovitch, 38, as he oversaw a team carrying out the final excavations before winter yesterday. "But it's certainly one of the first." He said the site contained an extremely unusual inscription which referred to itself, Shiloh, by name.Read the rest of this article...
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Prehistoric bones found on beach
2006-12-04 12:24:02
HUMAN bones discovered on a beach on Barra after a storm have been confirmed as dating from nearly 4,000 years ago. After almost a year of investigation by Hist oric Scotland and archaeologists, the remains of 13 people, dating from 1880BC and 1490BC, were found.Read the rest of this article...
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Neanderthal vs Neandertal
2006-12-04 12:24:02
With the recent spate of news articles about our nearest human neighbor, much discussion has been up about how you should spell the name, with a 'th' or with a 't'. Originally I felt it was a no-brainer to stay with the 'th', because 1) that's what most people recognize, 2) no matter how you spell it, it's still pronounced Nee-an-der-tall, and 3) if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I am just a public archaeologist and on most issues of such earth-shattering importance will waver if pressed. Here's a few links to what other bloggers are saying, and your opportunity to make your opinions known.Read the rest of this article...
More About: Thal , Neanderthal

Brushing up on Neanderthal tooth fossils
2006-12-02 18:21:02
Skulls and teeth are so important to fossil scholars that they regularly label every other kind of bone they dig up as "post-cranial." Post-cranial as in leg bones, arm bones, ribs ? the body's whole kit and caboodle, sans the stuff north of the chin. A new study of Neanderthal teeth serves up an example of why the cranial bones are so often the most important ones to researchers struggling to understand ancient creatures.Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were a species of archaic humans who lived in Europe and the Middle East hundreds of thousands of years ago. They disappear from the fossil record most recently around 30,000 years ago, about the time that early modern humans, Homo sapiens, started to spread across the continent. A long-raging disagreement among paleoanthropologists has concerned whether early humans straight-out replaced Neanderthals, the majority view, or else interbred with them. Read the rest of this article...
More About: Brush , Rush , Thal , Shin , Ossi

Broken leg may have killed Tutankhamun
2006-12-02 18:21:02
A medical scan of King Tutankhamun's mummified corpse may have finally nailed the cause of the Egyptian pharaoh's premature death. It was not a blow to the head, as some had speculated, but gangrene caused by a badly broken leg.A team of radiologists used a sophisticated 3D X-ray of Tutankhamun's body to identify what may have happened to the boy king before he died 3,300 years ago at about the age of 19.Computed tomography (CT) scans of the pharaoh's mummy, presented yesterday to the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of America in Chicago, confirmed a possible fracture in the boy's femur, or thigh bone, which probably occurred just before he died. Ashraf Selim, a radiologist at the Kasr Eleini Teaching Hospital at Cairo University, said there was no evidence of a skull fracture caused by a blow to the head - a suggestion made after previous X-rays taken in 1968 - but the broken leg may have been serious enough to kill the pharaoh.Read the rest of this article...
More About: Tank , Have , Kill , Broken , Killed

Ancient Egyptian Drama on TAC
2006-12-02 18:21:02
TRIAL OF A MUMMYLocation: Egypt Length: 23 min.This is the fictional story of Khonso-Imhep, Head Musician of the Pharaoh's court during the 18th Dynasty, as he passes from life into the afterworld, complete with a trial that determines his fate. Through re-enactments and imagery on wall paintings, this film depicts the ancient Egyptian mummification process and the religious rituals involved in preparing a dead body. This story displays the unique funeral ceremonies surrounding the preparation of a mummy and portrays the religious beliefs involved, as well as the mummy's discovery by archaeologists.Watch the video...
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Hungarian archaeologist discovers tablet mentioning Masada's
2006-12-02 18:21:02
In 73 CE, the Roman governor of Judea, Flavius Silva, laid siege to Masada with Legion X Fretensis. When the walls were broken down by a battering ram, the Romans found the fortress' defenders had set fire to all the structures and preferred mass suicide to captivity or defeat. Masada has since become part of Jewish mythology, as has the name Silva, who Josephus Flavius mentions in his writings. It is therefore no great surprise that Hungarian archaeologist Dr. Tibor Grull, studying in Israel three years ago, was excited to discover a stone tablet during a visit to the Temple Mount with a Latin inscription of the name of Masada's destroyer. Grull asked officials of the Waqf, the Muslim trust for the Temple Mount, where the tablet came from, and they explained it had been found in the large hole dug in the mount in 1999 when the entrance to Solomon's Stables was opened. The Hungarian archaeologist received rare permission to photograph and document the finding. In October 2005, Gr...
More About: Men , Tabl , Cover , Aria

Skeletons preserved to aid study of forensic science
2006-12-02 18:21:02
A UNIQUE Scottish collection of the skeletal remains of babies and young children is to be preserved to help forensic anthropologists.The collection will help research into unsolved crimes and the identification of children killed in natural disasters.The Scheuer Collection is believed to be the world's only active repository for juvenile skeletal remains and includes the bones of 100 individuals. Some of the bones, collected from archaeological and historical anatomical sources, are hundreds of years old.Named after Louise Scheuer, the eminent anthropologist who gathered the bones for study 14 years ago, the collection is still held at Dundee University's unit of human anatomy and forensic anthropology, headed by Professor Sue Black, who was the lead anthropologist in the British forensic team deployed to war-torn Kosovo in 1999. Read the rest of this article...
More About: Science , Study , Skeleton , Fore , Kele

Man held for 'pharaoh relic' sale
2006-12-02 18:21:02
A man has been arrested in France after advertising what he said was a lock of hair from Egypt's Pharaoh Ramses II for sale on the internet.The man said he had obtained the relic when his father worked on the pharaoh's mummy in France in the 1970s.Police seized small plastic sachets and boxes from the home of the man in the French Alpine town of Grenoble.The items have to be tested, but some experts said it was possible that the unnamed man's claims were true.Read the rest of this article...
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Ancient Moon 'computer' revisited
2006-12-02 18:21:02
The delicate workings at the heart of a 2,000-year-old analogue computer have been revealed by scientists.The Antikythera Mechanism, discovered more than 100 years ago in a Roman shipwreck, was used by ancient Greeks to display astronomical cycles.Using advanced imaging techniques, an Anglo-Greek team probed the remaining fragments of the complex geared device.The results, published in the journal Nature, show it could have been used to predict solar and lunar eclipses.Read the rest of this article...
More About: Moon , Computer , Comp , Site , Visi

Ancient Greek computer reveals its secrets
2006-12-02 18:21:02
A bronze calculating machine salvaged from a shipwreck a century ago is finally yielding up its secrets, revealing a Greek computer of remarkable sophistication for a device constructed long before the birth of Christ.Scholars have been baffled by the 80-plus fragments of the ancient mechanism found in 1901 by sponge divers in a Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, midway between the Peloponnese and Crete.Around the size of a discus, the device was so badly corroded that it had the consistency of flaky pastry and was encrusted with deposits. Yet it seemed to be the earliest-known machine involving an arrangement of gear-wheels, built centuries before such technology became commonplace.Was it a rich man's toy? Or was it an orrery or an astronomical clock? Or something else that reflected an ancient interest in astrology? Read the rest of this article...
More About: Computer , Comp , Secret , Secrets

Stonehenge was a site for sore eyes in 2300BC
2006-12-02 18:21:02
Stonehenge was the Lourdes of its day, to which diseased and injured ancient Britons flocked seeking cures for their ailments, according to a new theory.For most of the 20th century archaeologists have debated what motivated primitive humans to go to the immense effort of transporting giant stones 240 miles from south Wales to erect Britain's most significant prehistoric monument. Stonehenge was built in different stages between 3000BC and 1600BC and theories about their meaning and purpose have ranged from the serious to the wacky. The most widely accepted view is that it was to honour their ancestors.Read the rest of this article...
More About: Eyes , Site , Stone , Stonehenge , Tone

Ancient settlements discovered in Anatolia
2006-12-02 18:21:02
Researchers working on the Archaeological Settle ments in Turkey (TAY) project have discovered 120 previously unknown ancient settlement areas in various locations in eastern Anatolia, the project's manager said. Assistant Professor Alparslan Ceylan, a lecturer at Erzurum's Atatürk University and the project's leader, said that the 120 settlement areas, thought to belong to the Iron Age, included a temple and several fortresses. Ceylan said inventories for 480 ancient settlements in the region - including the newly discovered sites- were also prepared as part of the project, which has been under way for the last one-and-a-half years.Read the rest of this article...
More About: Men , Cover , Nato , Over

Rome's She-Wolf Younger Than Its City
2006-12-02 18:21:02
The icon of Rome 's foundation, the Capitoline she-wolf, was crafted in the Middle Ages, not the Antiquities, according to a research into the statue?s bronze-casting technique.The discovery quashes the long-prevailing belief that the she-wolf was adopted as an icon by the earliest Romans as a symbol for their city.Recalling the story of a she-wolf which fed Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, and his twin brother, Remus, after they had been thrown in a basket into the Tiber River, the statue has been always linked to the ancient world.Read the rest of this article...
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21st century technology cracks alchemists' secret recipe
2006-12-02 18:21:02
A 500-year old mystery surrounding the centre-piece of the alchemists' lab kit has been solved by UCL (University College London) and Cardiff University archaeologists.Since the Middle Ages, mixing vessels ? or crucibles ? manufactured in the Hesse region of Germany have been world renowned because of their ability to withstand strong reagents and high temperatures.Previous work by the team has shown that Hessian crucibles have been found in archaeological sites across the world, including Scandinavia, Cent ral Europe, Spain, Portugal, the UK, and even colonial America. At the time, many people tried to reproduce them but always failed.Now, writing in Nature, the researchers reveal using petrographic, chemical and X-ray diffraction analysis that Hessian crucible makers made use of an advanced material only properly identified and named in the 20th century.Dr Marcos Martinón-Torres, of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, who led the study, explains: "Our analysis of 50 Hessian and non-...
More About: Technology , Recipe , Techno , Tech

Creation vs. Darwin takes Muslim twist in Turkey
2006-12-02 18:21:02
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A lavishly illustrated "Atlas of Creation " is mysteriously turning up at schools and libraries in Turkey , proclaiming that Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution is the real root of terrorism.Arriving unsolicited by post, the large-format tome offers 768 glossy pages of photographs and easy-to-read text to prove that God created the world with all its species.At first sight, it looks like it could be the work of United States creationists, the Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days as told in the Bible.But the author's name, Harun Yahya, reveals the surprise inside. This is Islamic creationism, a richly funded movement based in predominantly Muslim Turkey which has an influence U.S. creationists could only dream of. Read the rest of this article...
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Getty museum walks out of talks over looted antiquities
2006-12-02 18:21:02
The battle between the world's richest museum and the Italian state took a turn for the worse yesterday when the Getty museum in California walked out of talks over the restitution of looted antiquities.Michael Brand, the director of the Getty, has sent a closely argued, six-page letter to Francesco Rutelli, the Minister of Culture, saying he is "deeply saddened" by the failure to reach agreement after more than a year of talks, and announcing the end of "these present negotiations". Mr Rutelli's office said the letter had been received "with surprise and disappointment".At the centre of the dispute is an enormous marble and limestone statue of the goddess Aphrodite, sold to the Getty for $18m (£10m) by a British antiquities dealer who was jailed last year. The statue, one of the glories of the Malibu museum, is claimed by the Italians to have been dug up by grave robbers in Morgantina, Sicily, and illegally exported to Switzerland, where the British dealer Robin Symes sold it on...
More About: Talk , Museum , Muse , Over , Anti

Dramatic shift from simple to complex marine ecosystems occu
2006-12-02 18:21:02
The earth experienced its biggest mass extinction about 250 million years ago. New research shows that this mass extinction did more than eliminate species: ecologically simple marine communities were largely displaced by complex communitiesField Museum, James Cook University scholars uncover a profound, yet overlooked ecological change in the history of lifeEurekAlert -CHICAGO: The earth experienced its biggest mass extinction about 250 million years ago, an event that wiped out an estimated 95% of marine species and 70% of land species. New research shows that this mass extinction did more than eliminate species: it fundamentally changed the basic ecology of the world's oceans.Read the rest of this article...
More About: Drama , System , Comp , Simp , Systems

History centre 'to open in 2007'
2006-12-02 18:21:02
Work on an £11.6m history centre in Swindon has been completed, with the building due to open next October. The centre will have seven miles of shelving for documents charting the history of Wiltshire and Swindon over the last seven centuries. This archive is currently held at the Record Office in Trowbridge. Access to the new centre in Chippenham will be improved through larger reading rooms and better internet facilities, Wiltshire County Council said. An education room for schools will also be provided. Read the rest of this article...
More About: History , Story , Open , Cent , Stor

Sky disc of Nebra shines in Basel
2006-12-02 18:21:02
The oldest representation of the cosmos ? the sky disc of Nebra ? has gone on show in Base l 's history museum. Basel (Swiss) has a special place in the disc's history. It was here that police seized the disc after it was stolen from its place of origin in Germany. The disc, which forms the centrepiece of an exhibition devoted to Bronze Age objects, has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of recent times. Made out of bronze with gold embossing, the 3,600-year-old object is an astronomical clock. It connects the sun and the moon calendars together, with the sun giving the day and year and the moon, the month. The moon year is, however, 11 days shorter than the sun year. This was taken into account in ancient times by adding an extra month, leading experts to believe that people in the Bronze Age were already making sophisticated astronomical observations similar to those written about by the Babylonians around 1,000 years later.Read the rest of this ar...
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Authenticity of Ilkley rock carvings challenged
2006-12-02 18:21:02
Elaborate rock art which for years is believed to have been created by prehistoric Ilkley man (West Yorkshire, England) was probably only created about 170 years ago, it has been revealed. A Victorian workman could have been responsible for some of the markings on one of Britain's most famous examples of prehistoric rock art. Ilkley archaeologist Gavin Edwards says he has proof which suggests the cup and ring markings on the town's internationally-known Panorama Stones were tampered with by a workman called Ambrose Collins in about the 1870s. He said the ladder-shaped markings are what has made the design on the largest of the three stones, the most elaborate example of bronze-age' art in the UK - but he seriously doubts they are the real thing. He got suspicious when he was studying sketches of marked stones which were donated to the town museum in 1880. He said: "The ladders were not on the drawing. Because I feel the ladders are so prominent it's difficult to believe the...
More About: Rock , City , Challenge , Authenticity , Hall

Skeleton find
2006-11-30 12:18:01
THE remains of skeletons dating back hundreds of years have been unearthed at a Weston church.Diggers moved into the grounds of St John the Baptist Church in Lower Church Road last week to start work on a £460,000 church centre.But during the excavations workmen disturbed the resting places of some former Weston residents. Shards of a late iron age jar have also been found at the site.Reverend Richard Taylor said: "We always knew it was likely there would be a former burial ground there. We had an initial exploratory dig on the site seven months ago which concluded we were likely to find remains.Read the rest of this article...
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Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved
2006-11-30 12:18:01
A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.The machine was lost among cargo in 65BC when the ship carrying it sank in 42m of water off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. By chance, in 1900, a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck and recovered statues and other artifacts from the site.The machine first came to light when an archaeologist working on the recovered objects noticed that a lump of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Closer inspection of material brought up from the stricken ship subsequently revealed 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, clock-like hands and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.Since its discovery, scientists have been trying to reconstruct the device, which is now known to be an astronomical calendar capable of tracking with remarkable precision the position of the sun, sever...
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Stolen Dacian bracelet to be brought back to Romania
2006-11-29 18:12:01
The golden Dacian bracelet found in September at one of the Grand Palais Biennial Exhibition stands in Paris will be brought back to Roma nia by December 15, and exhibited at the National History Museum of Romania (MNIR) in Bucharest.?By December 15, the Dacian gold bracelet found in Paris will be brought to the National History Museum. The item will continue to act as evidence in the pending lawsuit,? says Virgil Nitulescu, adviser to the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs (MCC).According to the official, several Romanian experts will be sent to Paris to analyse the bracelet. Romanian and French authorities believe the item to have been stolen from the Sarmisegetuza Regia archaeology site in Orastiei Mountains. The item is put at EUR 1.5 M.Read the rest of this article...
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Volunteers peel back Pan?s past
2006-11-29 18:12:01
For the past 9 weeks, enthusiastic amateur archaeologists and metal detectorists have gathered at Pan, Newport to join in the investigation of two large fields on either side of Pan Lane. Each Saturday groups of between 10 and 25 volunteers have lent a hand, searching the fields for clues to Pan?s past. And there were plenty! Hundreds of objects have been washed, marked and sorted to see what they can tell us about the area. It is clear that people have lived here for thousands of years. On the very first session sharp-eyed volunteer Dawn Russell picked up a flint tool which is at least 4,000 years? old! Jane Roberts of Wessex Archaeology said ?It?s difficult to spot a small piece of worked flint in the mud, amongst lots of other stones. The volunteers were really keen and we had to persuade them to take a beak!? Read the rest of this article...
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A Layered Look Reveals Ancient Greek Texts
2006-11-29 00:06:02
An ambitious international project to decipher 1,000-year-old moldy pages is yielding new clues about ancient Greece as seen through the eyes of Hyperides, an important Athenian orator and politician from the fourth century B.C. What is slowly coming to light, scholars say, represents the most significant discovery of Hyperides text since 1891, illuminating some fascinating, time-shrouded insights into Athenian law and social history.?This helps to fill in critical moments in ancient classical Greece,? said William Noel, the curator of manuscripts and rare books at the Walters Art Museum here and the director of the Archimedes Palimpsest project. Hyperides ?is one of the great foundational figures of Greek democracy and the golden age of Athenian democracy, the foundational democracy of all democracy.?The Archimedes Palimpsest, sold at auction at Christie?s for $2 million in 1998, is best known for containing some of the oldest copies of work by the great Greek mathematician who giv...
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Roman Amphitheatres & spectacula - a 21st Century Perspectiv
2006-11-29 00:06:02
16th - 18th February 2007, The Grosvenor Museum, ChesterThis unique conference will range across all aspects of study of the Roma n Amphitheatre and the spectacula that took place there. The event offers specialists and non-specialists alike an unrivalled opportunity to access the very latest research and thinking from many different perspectives. The conference will discuss the discovery of new amphitheatre sites, and recent excavation and survey work, aspects of the architecture and planning of the buildings, amphitheatres both at the frontier periphery and at the centre of the Empire; from Northern Europe through Spain, the east, and North Africa. It will examine functional, religious and social aspects of the buildings and the spectacles, aspects of the organisation of the spectacles, and gladiatorial death and burial. The problems encountered in the preservation and display of amphitheatres as monuments in the modern urban environment will be touched upon. The Conference will fe...
More About: Cent , Heat , Oman , Roman

CyArk: Digital Heritage Archaeology
2006-11-28 06:00:02
The CyArk project is an ambitious plan to place digital images--maps, plans, three-dimensional views--of world heritage sites in one place. Funded primarily by the Kacyra Family Foundation, CyArk currently has images on some of the better known sites from around the world, including Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), Ankgor (Cambodia), Thebes (Egypt), the Cathedral of Beauvais (France), Tikal (Guatemala), Pompeii (Italy), Chavin de Huantar and Tambo Colorado (Peru) and Deadwood and Mesa Verde (the United States). Each archaeological site studied has a short film introduction, clickable thumbnail photographs of rooms at the site and a site plan; many have three-dimensional images of site details such as rooms and profiles and a few have computer-generated reconstructions. Read the rest of this article...
More About: Heritage , Archaeology , Digital , Digi , Ology