International experts in satellite imagery, geology and forensic archaeology have completed a research visit to Bosnia to investigate new methods of locating and mapping mass graves, a Bosnia-based agency dealing with missing persons and DNA identification said Monday.
The experts from Britain's University of Birmingham and Applied Analysis Incorporated, a U.S. private company specializing in processing satellite images, were part of a multidisciplinary project organized by the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP, based in Sarajevo.
Bit more from the BBC.
Some news from the EEF
Ummmmm. . . . . King Tut tut tut
They call him the Pharaoh, the keeper of the pyramids. He rules Egyptology with an iron fist and a censorious tongue. Nobody crosses Zahi Hawass and gets away with it. As the fabulous treasures of Tutankhamun begin a world tour, Richard Girling excavates the conspiracies, conflicts and fears that curse the world of archeology
You might as well ask a eunuch to slag off an emperor. Quite quickly you get tired of asking: phone calls not returned; e-mails not answered; questions ducked. If you're lucky, you might get the odd side-of-mouth hint; but no names, no details.
Well. Actually, if you read the first and last pages, it probably presents a pretty balanced view of Zahi. The remainder is mostly a defense of Joann Fletcher at the expense of Zahi. There is far more to the "controversy" over Fletcher's Nefertiti theory than presented here, and most Egyptologists reject it on numerous grounds.
The paper on the founding date of Naukratis, described earlier onlist (Feb. 15, '05) , is now available online (in PDF, 493 kB):
P. James, "Naukratis Revisited", Hyperboreus: Studia Classica 9:2 (2003), 235-264.
http://www.centuries.co.uk/naukratis.pdf
"Herodotus stated that the Greek settlement at Naukratis in Egypt began during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis (570-526 BC). It is usually maintained that archaeology has proven him wrong, as the presently accepted dating for Archaic Greek pottery places the colony in the late 7th century. A combination of stratigraphic and historical evidence, together with that provided by Egyptian, Cypriot and Phoenician artefacts, suggests that the Greek pottery dating is in error, rather than Herodotus. "
Egyptology's New Frontier
A documentary looks at the subject's roots and an ambitious project to document the Nile's ancient civilization.
Two shows are somewhat awkwardly stuck together in The Search for Eternal Egypt, which premieres on the History Channel, Sunday, June 12, 7 pm ET/PT. One half of the show is an overview of the development of Egyptology featuring prominent scholars, mostly filmed on-site. The other half of the show focuses on an ambitious partnership between Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities and IBM that aims at making ancient Egyptian culture available to all. The documentary bounces back and forth between these two themes, but the feel of the two parts is very different, and the transitions from talking heads in the field to computer specialists and digitized images are abrupt despite the efforts of narrator Omar Sharif.
End of EEF news
Northwest Archaeology update From tools, shells and bones, a culture emerges
Down on his hands and knees, he swept the trowel back and forth across the dirt, led only by intuition.
"Something just told me, keep digging," said Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member Mark Charles, aka "Hammer," the nickname he earned as a guard on the high-school basketball court.
But with that trowel, its handle carved in the shape of a raven with a red "H" painted on the end, he was delicate, carefully pulling back the soil until something caught his fisherman's eye. It was a disc, carved out of whale vertebra. He brushed it off and called an archaeologist over to look.
Actually, that might be a part of the series we linked to last week.