An American-Egyptian team working on the site of ancient Nekhen -- known in Greek times as Hierakonpolis -- in the area of Kom Al-Ahmar near the Upper Egyptian city of Edfu has found what is believed to be the largest pre-dynastic funerary complex ever found. This major discovery, which dates back to the period identified as Naqada II (c. 3600 BC), is expected to cast more light on the period when Egypt was first developing into a nation.
CSI: Yellowstone
Yellowstone asks for help in graves mystery
The National Park Service is asking for help in identifying what appear to be a pair of unmarked graves in Yellowstone National Park.
The graves were pointed out several years ago by a retired park staff member concerned by their proximity to construction on the park's new Heritage and Research Center near the park's northern entrance. He told park officials that two people were buried there under a sheet of metal, but provided no further details.
Researchers combed historical and land transfer records but found nothing, and regional American Indian tribes say it's unlikely natives were buried there.
More here.
Treasure! Archaeologists find hoard of Celtic coins
Archaeologists have uncovered 17 ancient Celtic coins in a field in the south of the Netherlands, the first hoard of such coins found in the country.
Amsterdam's Free University excavated the site in April and will display the coins, which are made of silver and mixed with copper and gold, in the Limburgs Museum in the city of Venlo on Saturday.
They are estimated to date from 20-50 B.C., shortly after Julius Caesar began the Roman conquest of the region.
Leaders of local Germanic tribes "probably used these coins to reward their followers for loyalty," researchers said.
Similar finds have been made in neighboring Belgium and Germany.
That's the whole thing.
Film traces destruction of Emeryville shellmound
For thousands of years, the Ohlone people lived, fished and hunted along the shores of Temescal Creek where it flowed into San Francisco Bay.
Their visible legacy — a huge mound of shells, tools, bowls, animal bones and human burials that rose 60 feet above ground — was desecrated, first for a dance hall in the 1870s, then for a pigment plant in the 1920s.
Still, people involved in building the Bay Street shopping mall in Emeryville expected to find some ancient skeletal remains during construction. After all, the project was built directly over what was once the largest and most extensive American Indian shellmoundlining the Bay.
And now. . . .new from the EEF
Press report: "In the footsteps of Count Laszlo"
http://travel.independent.co.uk/africa/northern/story.jsp?story=641863
"Robert Twigger goes in search of rock art in the Egyptian desert, and discovers depictions of man's daily life from a time before the Pyramids were built". A travel story.
Press report: "Sailing to distant lands"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/745/hr1.htm
"There are few material remains of this necessarily well-organised procedure and the arduous but
necessary journey to Punt. Early last month, however, at the ancient port of Marsa Gawasis, south of
Hurghada, an American-Italian team stumbled upon interesting evidence of trade between the two regions. "
Press report: "Historical Discovery? Well, Yes and No"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/arts/design/30papy.html
(id and password: eefeef)
A clearheaded view at the latest developments surrounding the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.
[Eds. We commented on this earlier. Seems that, while important work is being done on these things, it's not exactly a RECENT BREATHROUGH in papyrology.]
Press report: "A race against time to dig up Sudan's past"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/30/news/sudan.php
"Sudan is preparing to build a giant dam at the Nile's fourth cataract (...), The project risks submerging some of Sudan's lofty past (...) The affected locations, according to government scientists, include the noted towns and cemeteries from the Pharaonic period and the Napato-Meroitic era, which stretched from 900 B.C. to A.D. 350, at Gebel Barkal, the post-Meroitic tumuli, or grave mounds, of Zuma and the Christian monastery of Ghazali, among others."
[For the international appeal for missions to undertake survey and excavations in the threatened area before its inundation, see:
http://www.sudarchrs.org.uk/Appeal.doc ]
Aidan Dodson, Thutmosis III: Family Man, in: The Ostracon, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 3-7 (2004)
http://www.egyptstudy.org/Ostracon/DodsonTIIIWeb.pdf
"Tuthmosis III's image is essentially that of a warrior; if one thinks of him in a family context, it is probably to consider the nature of his relationship with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut. However, the surviving data allows us to learn more about his immediate family than is known about that of many of his predecessors." - This article was abridge from Aidan Dodson, Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Cairo, 2004. - pdf-file: 0.7 MB
Online version of: Sarah Parcak, Finding New Archaeological Sites in Egypt Using Satellite Remote Sensing: Case Studies From Middle Egypt and the Delta, in: Paper presented at the International Conference on Remote Sensing
Archaeology, Beijing, October 18-21, 2004, pp. 136-140 - pdf-file: 130 KB
http://www.rsarch.cn/english/article/17-Sarah%20Parcak.pdf
"Utilizing a combination of satellite imagery analysis and subsequent ground-truthing techniques over broad regions in Middle Egypt and the northeast Delta, my paper will discuss how satellites can assist in not only
locating new sites, sites that have supposedly been "destroyed" and known sites, but can aid in answering larger archaeological, historical and heritage research questions."
End of EEF news