PORTLAND, Ore. - Anthropologists seeking to study the ancient Kennewick Man skeleton scored another victory when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request by four Northwest tribes for a rehearing in the lengthy dispute.
Tribal lawyers sought to have the case reheard by the full court after a three-judge panel ruled in February that the tribes had no right to the 9,300-year-old remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
A brief order issued Monday by the court denied the request from the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Yakama and Colville tribes, who want to bury the remains without a scientific study.
World Premiere of 'Beyond the Movie: Conquering Troy' Explores the
Line between History and Myth
WASHINGTON, April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- It is said to be the greatest love
story ever told and the grandest war epic in history. But how much of the
Trojan War saga is true? Did a Greek queen really fall in love with a Trojan
warrior and run away with him? Did King Agamemnon launch 1,000 ships across
the Aegean Sea in an effort to win her back? Did Paris, Helen, Achilles --
and even the city of Troy itself -- really exist? The upcoming blockbuster
"Troy" starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom is the latest dramatization of
these centuries-old mysteries immortalized by the poet Homer in "The Iliad"
and "The Odyssey."
On Friday, May 7, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, just one week before the feature
film opens, join the National Geographic Channel (NGC) for the world premiere
of "Beyond the Movie: Conquering Troy," a one-hour special that combines
ancient storytelling and modern archaeology to explore the truth behind the
legend. The special compares fact and fiction, revealing a complex mystery
even more fantastic than Homer could have imagined.
More mummies from Egypt Shafts outside Cairo contain ‘mummies everywhere’
SAQQARA, Egypt - Archaeologists have found more than 50 mummies buried in deep shafts south of Cairo and dating from the first millennium B.C., a French-Egyptian team reported Monday.
Some of the mummies, wrapped in linen and sealed inside stone or wooden sarcophagi, are in an excellent state of preservation for the period, said Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Antiquities Council.
Hawass said Egyptians had used the network of shafts and corridors over several centuries, starting from the 26th dynasty (664-525 B.C.) and continuing into the Ptolemaic period, which ended with the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC.
What future for a sleeping giant?
The Roman town of Venta Icenorum lies slumbering beneath the Norfolk countryside. Now the county faces a conundrum – should it awaken this "Crown jewel" of our heritage and turn it into a modern visitor attraction or let the past sleep in peace? ANGI KENNEDY investigates.
Once it was the most important Roman town in our part of East Anglia. Today it is hidden beneath the grass of the Tas Valley.
But as to tomorrow? The future of Venta Icenorum, the Roman town at Caistor St Edmund is still to be decided upon.
Should it be developed as a major attraction to allow potentially tens of thousands of visitors every year to discover more of what life was life in Roman Britain?
Should it be left as it is, protected from possible damage and part of a beautiful rural setting?
A fresh look at Rome's ancient frescoes
ROME -- Buried for 12 centuries by a landslide and closed to the public for 24 years, the oldest Christian church in the Roman Forum is being opened for a limited time, offering glimpses of Byzantine frescoes that changed scholars' views of medieval art.
Guided tours of the Santa Maria Antiqua, nestled under the imperial palaces of Rome's Palatine Hill, began earlier this month and continue through May while restoration efforts continue.
Werner Schmid, a restoration expert working on the project, said the tours will give visitors a chance to see frescoes from the mid-6th century to the mid-8th century.
Priest's crusade to return African treasures
WHEN a Scottish priest returned a 400-year-old carved wooden object he found in the back of a vestry cupboard to Ethiopia, he thought it might have some religious significance to the people of the African nation.
But he didn’t realise quite how important it would be.
It turned out to be a tabot - a consecrated altar slab and symbol of the Ark of the Covenant stolen by British troops - and when he returned it two years ago, a million jubilant Ethiopians lined the streets of Addis Ababa to welcome it home.
Now the Rev John McLuckie, formerly of St John’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, has launched a fresh crusade - to return hundreds of similarly looted items now scattered throughout Britain’s museums and art collections to their rightful place in the African continent.
Archaeological news from Uzbekistan Uzbekistan's best kept secret
Kampyr-Tepe, in southern Uzbekistan, was built at the time of Alexander the Great's empire and occupied for about 500 years until it fell into decline.
The fortified city controlled a key route from central to south Asia
Since it was discovered, a generation ago, it has been closed to the public because it stands in a sensitive and tightly guarded military zone, right on the Afghan border.
The city perched on a high shelf of land - cut into clay walls that dropped sheer into the plains below.
Caught in the light of a winter afternoon, an entire city spread as far as we could see, the dun-coloured dust touched with gold.
UW student considers mound a key archaic site
In the middle of a swampy island inhabited by some of the most dangerous cocaine runners in the Americas, there lies an ancient Garden of Eden.
Discovered and uncovered by John Hodgson, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this archaeological site may prove to be a crucial piece of the puzzle known as the late archaic period of Mesoamerica - a time period about 5,000 years ago in a region that includes Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
And it may shed light on the factors that prompted a transition from a purely hunting and gathering society to one more complex.
Dig at housing site sheds light on prehistoric settlers
ARCHAEOLOGISTS will have a greater understanding of the lives of the people who built great ritual monuments such as Stonehenge following excavations at one of Scotland's largest rural settlements.
A dig at a new housing development in Dreghorn, Ayrshire, has revealed major medieval remains and Neolithic features including the site of a ceremonial pole, houses and a pottery kiln.
The site suggests a 5000-year-old village similar in scale to the group of stone houses at Skara Brae, Orkney, and is helping historians "rewrite pre-history"