Discovery of a campsite used by ancient hunters has delayed work on a stretch of the Heartland Expressway for at least a year.
The site, along a creek bed between Buffalo Gap and Maverick Junction, was found last year during a routine cultural-resources survey that preceded construction of the Heartland Expressway. Archaeologists estimated the site at 9,000 to 12,000 years old.
More on compassionate H. erecti A Paleopuzzle: Chomping With No Chompers
The toothless skull of an early human ancestor discovered in the Caucasus may attest to evolution's oldest known example of compassion for the elderly and handicapped, scientists report today.
Other experts agreed that the discovery was significant, but cautioned that it might be a stretch to interpret the fossil as evidence of compassion.
The well-preserved skull, found in Georgia, belonged to a male Homo erectus about 40 years old. All his teeth, except the left canine, were missing. Regrowth of bone indicated that the man had been toothless for at least two years before he died at what was then an old age. (The discoverers call him the "old man.")
Sargent Artifacts To Be Displayed
Hundreds of rare artifacts collected by the late archaeologist Howard Sargent will be displayed Saturday in Manchester.
The artifacts were sold to Mark Humpal, a dealer from Cornish, N.H., by Sargent's widow.
The Sargent Museum of Archaeology has been trying to raise money to buy the collection. The collection includes tools and arrowheads Sargent excavated from American Indian sites in the Merrimack and Pemigewasset River valleys.
Humpal said he hopes a donor steps forward to buy the collection for the museum.
That's the whole thing.
More mummy scanning Mummies Undergo CT Scans at Calif. Museum
This much experts know: One was a priest from a wealthy family. Another was a young girl who sang during religious rituals. A third was a child, buried in a finely carved wooden coffin.
But there is much more to learn about the six Egyptian mummies that were wrapped and buried in strips of resin-encrusted linen thousands of years ago to protect them from the elements.
DIgging up the past
A DEFINITIVE guide to the archaeology and historical development of St Albans is to be published this month.
Alban's Buried Towns is co-authored by Rosalind Niblett, the district council's archaeologist, and Isobel Thompson who has the same role for Herts County Council.
It will be launched at Verulamium Museum on April 20 by Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, and Professor Martin Biddle, St Albans Abbey's archaeologist.
Artifact conservation update Engineers Help To Save And Reconstruct The Past
Each time an ancient vase disintegrates, a ceramic tile crumbles or a painting cracks and fades, another link with our past is lost and we understand just a little less about where we came from and, ultimately, who we are.
When the last artisan dies and an ancient technology is lost, we're similarly impoverished, says Pamela Vandiver, an internationally recognized expert in artifact preservation and, now, a professor at The University of Arizona.
Vandiver came to UA last year to start a program in Heritage Conservation Science (HCS) that trains students to stabilize, preserve and better understand ancient artifacts and how they were created and used.
Anthropologist employs skills of detection
Most museums have fakes in their collections. This is a reality to which they don't want to bring attention. Jane MacLaren Walsh, however, loves to turn the material legacy of the past over and over in her strong hands. As an art detective, it's both her research and her reverie.
She fingers a tube of jade as narrow as a drinking straw and wonders about its maker, the artist who worked 3,500 years ago.
Then she thinks of the other craftsmen who, roughly 200 years ago, created forgeries of such antiquities so convincing that today they nestle in the world's finest museums.
Tiberias dig unearths very rare marble floor
A marble floor dating from the first century CE was unearthed during this season's excavations of ancient Tiberias.
According to archaeologist Professor Yizhar Hirschfeld, director of the three-week dig that ended yesterday, the floor is apparently a remnant of a pavement in the palace of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, who ruled the Galilee from 4 BCE to 38 CE.
"Marble from the first century CE was very rare in this area and is found only in royal palaces. Who knows, perhaps Salome danced for the king on this very floor," Hirschfeld said, referring to the New Testament story of the daughter of Herodias, Antipas' wife, who demanded the head of John the Baptist on a platter in exchange for the dance.
And now. . . .the weekly EEF news
Egypt Online has two press reports about new museums:
-- "Saqqara gets new museum"
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html12/o030425j.htm
Mid May the new Amheteb Museum will be opened, and "will house about 2000 pieces, including artifacts and statues that were unearthed since the start of excavations in the Saqqara area last century."
-- "New Museum for North Sinai"
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html12/o070425z8.htm
"The Al-Arish National Museum for North Sinai history ... will contain over 300 antiquities taken from eight other national museums."
Also Al Ahram Weekly has museum news, namely a press report about the planned Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM):
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/737/eg6.htm
"The GEM will be situated on the Giza plateau...... The museum's grand staircase will follow a chronological route through the collections, culminating in a view of the Pyramids from the uppermost floor.... The collections themselves will be organised thematically...Other displays will focus on kingship and the state, religious practices during the Amarna period and on the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians, their sports, games, music, arts and crafts as well as their cultural and social practices..... It will also house a fully-computerised information centre for Egyptologists and a training centre where short courses on Egyptology will be given to museum curators and conservationists. "
Egypt Today has two follow-up press reports without new material:
--"Unravelling the Mystery of the Boy King's Murder"
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=4857
"We found out that for the blow to the back of the head, there is no indication that this is murder. It is a mummification hole," Hawass explains. "Also, there is no evidence at all of a crush to the chest, as people [have] said."
Scientists reached their conclusion after detecting two layers of embalming liquid inside the bone. The break could have happened during embalment, or within days of Tutankhamen's death."
-- "Ramsis II has a New Home"
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=4842
"A place that the king can call home has been the subject of debate for years. Should he move back to Meet Raheena, his original home? Or find more sumptuous new digs at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) planned for the Giza Plateau?"
Janet Richards, Society and Death in Ancient Egypt: Mortuary Landscapes of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, March 2005). Hardback, 262 pp. ISBN-10: 0521840333 / ISBN-13: 9780521840330. GBP 45.00. Info at:
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521840333
Online Master's Thesis: Ellen Salter-Pedersen, The Myth of Eternal Preservation: Patterns of Damage in Egyptian Mummies, The Department of Geography and Anthropology, The Louisiana State University, 2004. vi, 81 pp.
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-03252004-165820/
"This thesis examines published reports on Egyptian mummies from museums in the United States, Europe, and Egypt for the presence of osteological fractures, dislocations and other related damage ... The results do show relationships between the cause of the postmortem damage and the geographic locations, historic periods, and social class. Conversely, no relationship is observed between the postmortem damage and antemortem pathologies, amulets, and protective casings."
Online version of: Lennart Berg, The salvage of the Abu Simbel Temples, in: Monumentum, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 25-56 (1978) - pdf-file: 4.0 MB
English version:
http://www.international.icomos.org/monumentum/vol17/vol17_2.pdf
"The salvage of the Abu Simbel Temples in southern Egypt constitutes an outstanding example of a grand ancient monument handed down to posterity ...
It was not until last year [1976], however, that a publication appeared giving a description covering the whole of this operation. It was VBB who published their Concluding Report on the Salvage of the Abu Simbel Temples, a richly illustrated volume of more than 200 pages. The article endeavours to present the contents of this book in a concentrated form ...."
Online version of: Roel J. Jansen, Martin Poulus, Henk Venema, Jaap Stoker, High-Resolution Spiral CT of Egyptian Scarabs, in: Radiographics, vol. 22, pp. 63-66 (2002)
HTML: http://radiographics.rsnajnls.org/cgi/content/full/22/1/63
pdf (230 KB): http://radiographics.rsnajnls.org/cgi/reprint/22/1/63.pdf
"In this article, we discuss the scarab and describe visualization of hieroglyphs on the undersurfaces of scarabs with high-resolution spiral CT."
End of EEF news