A team of Iranian archaeologists is trying to solve the riddle of why a newly discovered Median monument had been deliberately concealed with material such as stones, bricks, and mud, the director of the team working at the site announced on Tuesday.
“The monument contains one large and one small room constructed in a circular plan. The rooms have been filled almost to the ceiling with stones and their outer section has been hidden with a wall made of stone and brick which is about two meters thick,”
Mehrdad Malekzadeh said in reference to the Median monument which was discovered at the ancient site of Zarbolagh near the central Iranian city of Qom.
And mohr from Mehr Parthian city discovered on Minab plain
A team of Iranian and British archaeologists have discovered a Parthian era city on Minab plain in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, the director of the team announced on Wednesday.
“The city was discovered by chance during the study of Minab plain, which had been previously identified,” Alireza Khosrozadeh said, adding that no excavation of the area has been carried out but facilities are being prepared for the team to confine the site for further study.
The team is currently making an initial study on the Parthian city and will soon submit a comprehensive plan for excavation of the site to the Center for Archaeological Studies.
Lost
Buried under grass and pavement in the upper portion of Robert H. Treman State Park are traces of a 19th-century mill town that has disappeared from maps but lingers in name.
Known as Enfield Falls, the former village lives on for archaeology students at Cornell University.
For about six years, Sherene Baugher's classes have excavated sections of upper Treman Park, which lies in Enfield, digging at the sites of former homes to uncover evidence of the people who lived there. Their most recent discovery, this fall, was the original footprint of Budd House, where the hamlet's blacksmith and postmaster lived.
That sounds like a neat long-term project.
Austronesians migrated from Taiwan, says archaeologist
Professor Peter Bellwood, director of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at Australian National University, said archaeological evidence proved that ancestors of today's Austronesian-speaking people, numbering about 300 million, migrated from Taiwan to Pacific Rim areas.
Bellwood became convinced of his conclusion after completing fieldwork recently in the northern Philippine's Batan Island and the Yer Bac prehistoric site in northern Vietnam, where he found pieces of penannular jade rings and earthenware that can be linked to prehistoric Taiwan.
In a speech delivered at the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung, Bellwood said that jade was not produced in most of the Austronesian-speaking areas except for Taiwan and the pieces of penannular jade rings found in both Batan and Yer Bac were similar to those found in Hualien, eastern Taiwan.
Graves Museum update Ruling goes against archeology museum backers
A judge on Monday threw out objections from several members of the Broward County Archaeology Society who oppose the dissolution of the Graves Museum.
The museum, on Federal Highway in Dania Beach, filed for bankruptcy in June. A month later, trustee Soneet Kapila was appointed to oversee the museum and its collection. He closed it in July.
Earlier this month, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul Hyman approved the trustee's plan to donate the $1.9 million museum collection to Broward Community College and Florida State University.
Members had offered the judge an alternative plan that would have repaid the debt and loaned out the collections until they could reopen in another location. They say they may file an appeal.
That's the whole thing. There have been a few stories we've posted on this in the past (not the recent past though).
Oxyrhynchus papyri update Papyrus Reveals New Clues to Ancient World
Classical Greek and Roman literature is being read for the first time in 2,000 years thanks to new technology. The previously illegible texts are among a hoard of papyrus manuscripts. Scholars say the rediscovered writings will provide a fascinating new window into the ancient world.
Salvaged from an ancient garbage dump in Egypt, the collection is kept at Oxford University in England. Known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the collection includes writings by great classical Greek authors such as Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Just a bit new in this one.
Fight! Fight! Will Ireland slice up its most mythical site?
The proposed road will not cut through the actual hill, but it will run close, slicing through a landscape that was once integrated with Tara. The route of the road includes many important archaeological sites that will have to be excavated thoroughly before the road builders destroy them.
The National Roads Authority has built up significant expertise in doing these rescue missions according to best possible practice. The interchange and the new road, however, will bring in their wake not only traffic, but development like warehouses and light industry. A rural idyll becomes an urban landscape.
Kind of an opinion piece on the Tara roadway project which we have blogged on before.
Roman relics spark village dig
Archaeologists are to excavate what they think could be the site of a Roman lead mine dating back at least 1,600 years.
In June last year, Cambria Archaeology unearthed the best preserved example of a medieval track in Wales in a peat bog near Borth in Ceredigion.
But workers also stumbled across evidence of what they described as a Roman "industrial estate."
Next month they are going back to the village to probe the area again.
Traitor. DNA shows Celtic hero Somerled's Viking roots
A HISTORIC Celtic hero credited with driving the Vikings out of western Scotland was actually descended from a Norseman, according to research by a leading DNA expert.
According to traditional genealogies, Somerled, who is said to have died in 1164 after ousting the Vikings from Argyll, Kintyre and the Western Isles, was descended from an ancient royal line going back to when the Scots were living in Ireland.
But Bryan Sykes, an Oxford University professor of human genetics who set up a company called Oxford Ancestors to research people’s DNA past, has discovered that Somerled’s Y-chromosome - which is inherited through the male line - is of Norse origin.
Another lucky schmuck Major Bronze Age haul unearthed
A large haul of Bronze Age artefacts has been uncovered by a gardener.
The 145 items, dating from about 800BC, were found by Simon Francis as he landscaped the grounds of a house in Cringleford, near Norwich.
Norfolk County Council archaeologists say the haul is one of the largest and most significant they have known.
Curator of archaeology Alan West said: "The items are in good condition and the more items we find the better knowledge we can develop of the era."
We mostly find peanuts that the local jays bury whenever we're digging in the yard. . .
Network of tombs found near obelisk site
Experts have discovered a major network of underground funerary chambers and arches near the original site of an ancient obelisk in Ethiopia, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) said on Monday.
The discovery was made in the past week during a surveying mission in the east African country in preparation for the return of the final piece of the 1 700-year-old Axum obelisk from Italy, the agency said.
Teams from the Paris-based Unesco found the chambers using high-technology imaging equipment.