When the Mir space station broke apart and plummeted into the Pacific Ocean in March 2001, 140 tons of Russian hardware vanished.
So did an archaeological treasure. Mir contained the technological know-how of an entire generation of Soviet engineers, said Robert Barclay of the Canadian Conservation Institute. When mission controllers maneuvered the station out of orbit, he said, "an irreplaceable part of the world's cultural heritage was lost."
To traditional archaeologists, studying spacecraft may sound a little out of this world. But recently a small band of scientists began working to preserve space artifacts.
Last month, the researchers met for the first time under the official title of the Space Heritage Task Force of the World Archaeological Congress.
Once again, Space news at ArchaeoBlog. We have always wondered what happened to that famous first footprint. Did Aldrin and Armstrong carefully step around it the whole time they were on the moon? Did one of them accidentally wipe it out? The moon is already full of humankind's junk, and Mars (not to mention Venus, Jupiter, and various other solar system bodies) already have artifacts on them (though admittedly, the Galileo remains are Jupiter are now probably just dust particles floating around in the atmosphere). Also note that the Apollo 11 site has not been designated in the National Register of Historic Places since the Register doesn't apply to other celestial bodies. So, really, anyone could go up there now and start taking stuff away (or sweeping away footprints just to be spiteful) with no real recourse.
Rock art hints at whaling origins
Stone Age people may have started hunting whales as early as 6,000 BC, new evidence from South Korea suggests.
Analysis of rock carvings at Bangu-Dae archaeological site in Ulsan in the southeast of the country revealed more than 46 depictions of large whales.
They also show evidence that humans used harpoons, floats and lines to catch their prey, which included sperm whales, right whales and humpbacks.
Details of the research are published in the journal L'Anthropologie.
Water, water everywhere Turkmen diggers find ancient temple
Ashgabat, , Apr. 20 (UPI) -- Archaeologists have made a sensational discovery in Turkmenistan -- a temple of water dating back to the third millennium B.C.
The Margianskaya expedition has been digging on the site of an ancient settlement called Gonur in the delta of the Murgab River in the eastern Mary region, some 200 miles east of the country's capital, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.ru reported Tuesday.
Victor Sarianidi, a prominent Russian archaeologist, leads the expedition, which discovered a rounded hollow about 55 yards in diameter and between eight and nine feet deep. The hollow is a short distance away from the royal palace dug out earlier.
Asgari Pottery Workshop Added to National Cultural Heritage List
TEHRAN (MNA) -- The Asgari Pottery Workshop in Lalejin near the western Iranian city of Hamedan was added to the national cultural heritage list, Farhad Farzaneh director of the Hamedan Cultural Heritage Department announced on Wednesday.
“The construction history is uncertain, but the workshop has existed since the 13th century because Iranian historian Hamdollah Mostowfi, who lived in the 14th century, referred to it in his travelogue,” Farzaneh said.
And more from Iran Ancient Persian earthenware sparks debate in Iran
Artefact 90920 is wending its way from the British Museum to Tehran, where it has fired debate between those who see it as a national icon and others who say it represents all that is worst about Iran's pre-Islamic past.
The controversial relic is an unassuming 23-centimetre-long (9-inch) cylinder of baked clay covered in densely packed lines of Babylonian cuneiform script.
It is generally agreed to be the world's first human rights charter – but Islamic conservatives say it is redolent of paganism and a monarchy ousted in the 1979 revolution.
The British Museum's keeper of Near Eastern antiquities John Curtis said the museum planned to loan the cylinder after it was shown in Paris and Berlin but a date was not yet set. Iranian archaeologists hoped it would arrive in 2006.
You know things are in a state of flux when a 2500 year old cylinder seal is making political waves.
Arrrrrr. . .matey . . . Divers locate pirate Morgan's lost ship
AN international dive team shivered in excitement when they spied the timbers of a wreck belonging to one of the most famous buccaneers of all time.
They discovered the remains of Welshman Captain Henry Morgan's lost frigate, HMS Oxford, off the coast of Haiti.
Oxford sank in 1669 as the result of an explosion believed to have been ignited by a celebratory pig roast.
The 34-gun ship had been sent to Morgan by King Charles II following his appointment as Admiral in Chief of the Confederacy of Buccaneers.
Happy birthday! Juggling Research and Diplomacy
As the German Archaeological Institute turns 175 on Wednesday, the spotlight will be on its archaeological work as well as on its cultural diplomacy in the Arab world and the Mid East.
From Prussian times to present-day democratic Germany, the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) has weathered a variety of political and ideological systems in its pursuit of scientific research.
Founded on April 21, 1829 in Rome with the aim of researching and publicizing the archaeological discoveries of the antique Greek era, the institute has seen an expansion of its focuses and activities over time.
Today the DAI represents a mammoth global archaeological network with eight departments, three commissions, a 100 scientists, 250 employees and worldwide excavations that have its archaeologists crisscrossing most continents.
Fabled Etruscan Kingdom Emerging?
April 21, 2004 — The fabled kingdom of the Etruscan king Lars Porsena is coming to light in the Tuscan hills near Florence, according to an Italian University professor.
Known as Chamars, where the lucumo (king) Porsena reigned in the 6th century B.C., this was the leading city-state of the Etruscan civilization that dominated much of Italy before the emergence of Rome.
It was from there that Porsena is said to have launched his most successful attack upon Rome in order to restore the exiled Tarquinius Superbus to the throne. Porsena laid siege to the city, but accepted a peace settlement and withdrew.
The Etruscans are truly enigmatic. Their language was apparently non-Indo-European which automatically makes them of intense interest.
More battlefield archaeology Culloden's tragedy retold
A MULTI-million-pound revamp of the Culloden battlefield visitor centre aims to offer a fresh perspective on the famous conflict, showing not only the events, but how they influenced later Scottish and world history.
The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) plans to upgrade the visitor centre near Inverness for the first time since 1984, at an estimated cost of £5-7 million.
The trust intends to use the redevelopment to update the interpretation of the 1746 battle with the help of more modern archaeological finds, as well as telling the story of how the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites shaped history in the Highlands and beyond.
Alex Lindsay, NTS regional manager for the Highlands and Islands, said that while the 1970s visitor centre attracts 85,000 people a year - with more visiting the battlefield - it was felt the time was right for an upgrade, to allow it to compete with other attractions in Scotland and make it more of a national and international facility.
'Forgotten' head-dresses shed light on Mesopotamian death rites
Gold and silver jewellery dating from 2,500BC has been discovered in a storeroom at the British Museum among relics first excavated in the 1920s.
The adornments were part of the elaborate head-dresses worn by female attendants who had been buried alive in a royal tomb at the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in what is now southern Iraq.
Some of the material excavated from the site more than 70 years ago had been hurriedly preserved in blocks of paraffin wax before being shipped back to London.
Note to graduate (and soon-to-be graduate) students: Large museums all over the world have extensive collections that have never been studied. Possible dissertation material.