Guidelines for reburial of old Christian bones
After years of uncertainty, archaeologists and church leaders in the UK have agreed a set of guidelines governing excavations of Christian graves.
The move is a response to calls for excavated human remains to be reburied on consecrated ground, and follows controversies over repatriating remains from North America and Australia held in museums.
Archaeologists are often brought in when human remains are discovered on construction sites for roads and houses. But what happens next can sometimes be controversial.
At present, remains excavated from consecrated ground are usually reburied, while bones removed from unconsecrated sites are retained for future study. But in the absence of explicit rules, local groups can prevent scientists retaining bones for study, whatever their provenance.
Hmmmmm. There is no link to the guidelines that were decided upon, and it is somewhat unclear just what they are. It seems as if the general idea is to rebury any remains found on consecrated ground, but that local opposition or whatever can force reburial of anything. We will look for the guidelines and report back.
Roman fort goes on the web
IT REMAINS one of the most remarkable Scottish archaeological excavations of all time, carried out by a self-taught amateur, and without the benefit of the aerial photographs and geophysical surveys that are considered essential today.
A hundred years ago a Melrose solicitor, James Curle, was hatching plans to unlock the secrets of the largest Roman settlement in Scotland, where Agricola’s army of 2,000 soldiers and 1,000 camp followers developed a sprawling fort and annexes on 340 acres in the lee of the Eildon Hills from 80AD.
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His attention to detail in the project for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the 420-page report he produced after the work at Trimontium was completed, survive as classic examples for modern Roman scholars and would-be archaeologists.
Now, thanks to an initiative by the Trimontium Trust, the book, complete with photographic plates and many of Curle’s pen and ink drawings, has been given its own internet site.
It really is a nice site. Link is here. This is one of the real "killer apps" of the Web as far as scholars are concerned: Access to old, rare manuscripts. The only way to get them otherwise is to either buy them yourself or, if you are affiliated with a university, get them through interlibrary borrowing. Which is okay, but you can only have them for a couple of weeks, and very often making photocopies of anything is impossible, or bad form (they can be very fragile). Hence, having a professional conservator make an electronic copy once and then make it available on the Web is really what the Internet was made for.
Restored Roman house to open soon
More than Lm111,000 are being invested to restore the building formerly known as the Roman Villa in Rabat, which has been renamed the Roman Domus.
The Roman Domus is expected to open again in a few months' time after intensive restoration and with new electricity and plumbing, security services, sanitary facilities and offices.
Heritage Malta projects and maintenance manager Martin Spiteri said the remains of the house were discovered by accident in 1881 but despite this a road was constructed there in 1899.
More on the Cincinnati sewer project archaeology Items left behind by ancients found
An archaeological dig in this eastern Hamilton County village, where a major sewer project is expected to start later this year, has turned up thousands of Indian artifacts.
The items were found in the project area by the pool in Dogwood Park off Wooster Pike. They include clay pot pieces, an old fish hook, corn, broken arrowheads, tools and a few human bones, said Matt Purtill, a principal investigator and archaeologist with Gray & Pape Inc., of downtown Cincinnati.
Mariemont officials have asked the curator of archaeology with the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal to help them find the appropriate Native Americangroup to preserve the items, which were discovered two to three feet deep.
The dig began four weeks ago to make sure there weren't items in the sewer project area.
Jamaicans angry over U.S. treasure hunt
Jamaicans have long suspected the waters off their southern coast are teeming with shipwrecks and sunken treasure from the days when the island was a haven for pirates. But they have always been happy to leave the mystery to the sea.
Now some islanders are angry to learn that their government has not only given an American treasure-salvage company permission to explore the area — called Pedro Banks — but also to keep half the bounty. They say all the artifacts — precious or not — are part of their history and belong in Jamaica.
"You're not just dealing with treasure here," said Ainsley Henriques, who resigned as director of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the state agency overseeing the project, to protest the government's decision.
Admiralty Corp., which launched its expedition this week from Port Royal, a colonial-era pirate town once dubbed the "wickedest city on earth," has promised to conduct a proper archaeological recovery.
THE SHIP "KERINIA II ELEFTHERIA" SAILED INTO THE PORT OF PIRAEUS
The ship “Kerinia II Eleftheria” sailed into the port of Piraeus this afternoon. It is a ship of historic value as its original was built in the 4th century BC. Its crew will deliver the gifts of Cyprus and the islands it has visited along the way to the city of Athens, the host of the 2004 Olympic Games.
The ancient builders of the ship used timber from the Aegean island of Samos to build it and probably they also came from Samos. The ship was sunk in 370BC near the coasts of Kerinia in Cyprus. Andreas Kariolou, a diver from Kerinia, found the ship at the bottom of the sea and the operation for its recovery got underway in 1967 by two US universities, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas.
It was reassembled and now is being kept in Kerinia under the protection of UNICEF. It has a great archaeological and shipbuilding value because it is the only ancient ship that was found and recovered with its cargo intact, namely 404 amphoras from the islands of Rhodes and Samos and from the city of Korinth in central Greece.