Welcome any linkees from A Voyage to Arcturus. He's got a lot of good links on space-related science, and well worth checking out. And speaking of which. . . .

NASA Radar Aids High-Tech Digs

History can be hard to find. A forgotten letter molders in an attic. An ancient temple hides beneath jungle greenery. Even knowing that something is there doesn't necessarily make it easier to find - the classic needle in the haystack.

But locating many archaeological sites isn't just difficult; it is required by law. Federal legislation mandates that all archaeological sites on federal lands be located and evaluated by federal managers, particularly if the sites could be damaged by construction or military maneuvers.

Legislation also specifically protects Native American burial sites on federal lands. However, less than 10 percent of the more than 700-million acres under federal control have been surveyed, according to a recent National Park Service report.

But what about body passing? Myths about the Olympic Games

Many aspects of our Olympic Games have been justified by specious ancient antecedents. Until recently we believed competitors had to be amateurs because we believed ancient Greek Olympians were amateurs. Nonsense. The ancient Olympics had no such rule, and the Greeks did not even have a word for amateur. Ancient Olympic athletes were professionals. The Olympic Truce, while guaranteeing safe passage to athletes and spectators on their way to the Games, did not, contrary to popular belief, stop all wars in Greece: Sparta was fined for attacking Elean territory in 420 B.C., and Arcadians invaded the sanctuary at Olympia in 364. Modern Olympic officials, citing an ancient inscription from Delphi that had been translated "Wine cannot be taken into the stadium," have assumed that ancient athletes abstained from strong drink, setting an example for today's competitors. It now seems the correct translation is "Wine cannot be taken out of the stadium."

Excavation report Archaeology's Interactive Dig

Nubians at Hierakonpolis: Week 4

It is one of those Murphy's Laws of archaeology that the best discoveries will be made in the last days of any field season. With just ten more days to go and a holiday in the middle, the rate of new finds was certainly gearing up to keep pace with that axiom and to keep us on our toes. But as usual in this cemetery, the discoveries occurred where we least expected them.

As we moved south from Tomb 18, the unexpected tomb with its remarkably well-preserved owner, we approached a large crater over three meters (ten feet) in diameter surrounded by a high ring of back dirt, which had been created by illicit digging in recent times. When we plotted this feature on the surface map, we presumed that some remnant of a large tumulus located on what appeared to be the high point of the cemetery had sparked the interest of the looters. Although it would be obviously plundered, we hoped that the back-dirt piles would preserve below them the architectural features of a huge tomb. Of course, as with most everything in this cemetery, we were wrong.

Lost city. . .found Likely medieval village revealed

THE remains of what is thought to be a medieval village have been discovered at the Worthies in Malmesbury.

The ruins were uncovered by accident by Wessex Water, which was surveying the area for a new £1.3m sewerage pipeline.

The firm's project manager, Andy Quinn, stumbled over what he believed was a man-made step during a survey of the slope leading down from the Worthies, near the cricket pitches and towards Gloucester Road.

An investigation by Wiltshire County Council archaeologist, Roy Canham, said the area could reveal the remains of a 12th century village.

Okay, only a lost village.

The steady deterioration of Iraq’s great Nimrud ivories

A cache of Iraq’s greatest and most valuable antiquities is deteriorating in the vaults of the central bank in Baghdad. The Art Newspaper can reveal that the exquisitely carved Nimrud Ivories have been suffering from dampness, following flooding by sewage-contaminated water last April, during the fighting. It is now clear that this has already caused some fragmentation and mould.

Among the ivory treasures dating from the eighth and ninth centuries BC is the famed “Mona Lisa” mask, discovered by Max Mallowan in 1951 in the North-West Palace of the Assyrian kings. He was accompanied by his wife, Agatha Christie, who cleaned the Nimrud Ivories, using face lotion. Other ivories were excavated at the site by Iraqi archaeologists, including some magnificent examples in 1975.

And another lost city Underground City Found Underneath Architect Sinan's House

During restoration of the architect Sinan's house in the town of Kayseri, a Central Anatolian city in Agirnas, an underground city was found.

Approximately 4000 square meters of the city, the age of which cannot be estimated, have been excavated so far. Nuvit Bayar, the Project Director of Guntas, the company responsible for the restoration, says, "We plan to finish this delicate job, which has been going on for two years, by the end of this month."

Three-year dig to uncover Roman past

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have started a three-year dig at Chester's amphitheatre.

It is hoped the ambitious project will allow historians to uncover the city's Roman and Christian past.

It is expected to attract an extra 40,000 visitors a year, bringing in £5m in investment.

The project is being jointly run by the city council and English Heritage.

David Miles, English Heritage's chief archaeologist, said: "This is a site of international importance. We are talking about a large military base here - 8,000 soldiers overpaid and over here. Plus everything you would expect around that kind of settlement, the markets, pubs and clubs, fast food and fast women.

Ancient plucked stringed instruments found in Xinjiang

URUMQI, April 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Archaeologists say that they have discovered three Konghous, an ancient plucked stringed instruments, during the excavation of the Yanghai Tombs in Shanshan County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

"The three unearthed ancient musical instruments are well preserved and intact," said Zhang Yuzhong, deputy director of the local archaeological institute.

Ain't THAT the cat's pajamas Human-Cat Relationship Goes Back Further

While ancient Egypt provides the first written record of cats, a burial discovered on Cyprus indicates that humans and felines may have become associated much earlier — extending 9,500 years or more into the past.

It's a relationship that has ranged from their being adored as gods in the Nile valley to their slinking into medieval witchhood and rising again to be revered in poet T.S. Eliot's verses and in the stage show "Cats." Today, more than 30 percent of American homes host a cat.

Jean-Denis Vigne of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris believes the relationship first blossomed with the development of agricultural societies 10,000 or so years ago.

"It seems that cats probably came more and more frequently into villages where grain stocks attracted numerous mice," said Vigne. "I think that human beings rapidly understood that they could use cats for reducing the number of mice."

Recent history It was 40 years ago today – mainframe celebrated

On April 7, 1964 IBM unveiled a machine that would change the course of computing for decades. The machine was the System/360 (the name evoked the encompassing aspects of a circle), and the era of the mainframe computer was born.

Until the 360, computers were dedicated to single tasks. If a company wanted to crunch a different set of numbers, it most likely had to buy a new computer, new software and new peripherals. The 360, on the other hand, was designed to handle multiple tasks. That meant businesses could use a single system for payroll, inventory and other tasks.

Note this at the end: "Consider this. The System/360 had a whopping 8MB of memory. The PC’s accessing this web site probably measure their memory at 256MB to 512MB."

It really was a seminal machine. Anyone out there who remembers "submitting jobs" at all hours (I do not, except for a few exercises when a computer science undergrad) because "computer time" was limited will crack open the bubbly on this day. In a lot of ways, the modern era was born on that day.

[Update]: For the more nerdy, here is a summary of the System/360 at Wikipedia.

And a picture here.

SOrry about some of the formatting problems. BlogSpot is being a little weird today. Or Notepad is.

Controversy revisits Shroud of Turin

A documentary on the Shroud of Turin suggests the cloth, a religious relic once
believed to be the burial shroud of Christ, might be authentic, and some archaeologists are
crying foul.

Experts have widely considered the 14-foot-long linen sheet, which has been kept since 1578
in a cathedral in Turin, Italy, a forgery since carbon-dating tests were performed in 1988.
Those tests placed its origin at A.D.1300.

But Secrets of the Dead: Shroud of Christ (PBS, tonight, 8 ET/PT, check local listings),
presents evidence that narrator Liev Schreiber says is "making it possible it was indeed the
shroud of Christ"

I didn't even know this was on last night and just happened to channel surf to it (errr,
only because Enterprise was a rerun). This is one of those things that will never die
because there will always be someone around to hype it up (note: I am on the side of it
being a medieval forgery). Nevertheless, here are some related links:

Original Nature paper describing the C-14 tests that gave the medieval date.

Walter McCrone on the composition of image and the supposed problems with the C-14 dating.

For those with subscriptions via universities or other institutions, two papers in The
Journal Of Archaeological Science regarding the C-14 dating:

Kouznetsov et al.: Effects of fires and biofractionation. . .

Jull, Donahue, and Damon commenting on Kouznetsov et al.

Couple more from Radiocarbon on the fire/contamination issue:

Attempt to Affect the Apparent 14C Age of Cotton by Scorching in a CO2 Environment

An Experiment to Refute the Likelihood of Cellulose Carboxylation

Metro Briefing (NYC)

TRENTON: STATE LANDMARKS PLANTATION SITE A five-acre site where archaeologists unearthed evidence of a northern slave plantation that the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington visited has been granted state landmark status, officials said yesterday. Known as the Beverwyck site, near Parsippany and Troy Hills, it was a parking lot scheduled for expansion in the late 1990's when workers came across artifacts. Archaeologists eventually found slave shackles, buttons from Revolutionary War-era uniforms and other items that tied the site to a 2,000-acre mid-18th-century plantation known as Beverwyck. The Department of Environmental Protection plans to recommend the property for federal landmark status as well.Stacy Albin (NYT)

That's the whole article, it's down the page a bit.

News from BangladeshGovt to preserve Narsingdi site

The government will preserve the archaeological site in Narsingdi where the country's oldest road, dating back to 450 BC, was unearthed last month.

State Minister for Cultural Affairs Selima Rahman assured the excavators of this during her visit there yesterday, when they asked her for immediate government steps to preserve the site.

Selima hailed the excavation team of Jahangirnagar University (JU) Department of Archaeology for its epoch-making work 'in quest of the country's root' and for unravelling further evidences of the region's glorious past.

"This findings will help us know better our thousands of years-old history and make us proud of our civilisation," Selima wrote in the visitors' book.

And still more from Bangladesh Archaeological sites in disarray

Country's archaeological sites are poorly maintained as the Department of Archaeology under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs is limping due to fund crisis and manpower shortage.

Important archaeological sites and monuments such as Mount of Raja Harishchandra in Savar and Roelbari in Netrokona are left without conservation although digging was done there more than 10 years ago.

The department also failed to conserve the largest bronze statue of Buddha found at Bhoj Raja's house in Mainamati. Famous archaeological sites in the capital like Bara Katara and Chhoto Katara and Sat Gombuj Mosque also lack proper maintenance.

Worship site indicates people's rich spiritual life 7,400 years ago

A worship site discovered in the Gaomiao ashes in central China's Hunan province indicates the people there enjoyed a rich spiritual life 7,400 years ago, making it the oldest religious site discovered so far in China, according to archeologists.

Located at west Hunan's Hongjiang city, the Gaomiao ashes is one of the well-preserved sites of the Neolithic age.

The provincial archaeological institution organized an excavation at the 15,000-sq-m historical site from February to March, and discovered sites built for worship together with a number of utensils used in the worship, like white gallipots and ivory engravings.

More from Iraq Cracks in ruined vault of Iraq's ancient Ctesiphon palace

CTESIPHON, Iraq: Long deserted by tourists, the ruined vault of Iraq's ancient Ctesiphon palace, which boasts the highest single-span brick arch in the world, is developing worrisome cracks although experts say it is unlikely to collapse.

Located on the northeast bank of the Tigris River, 30 kilometers (20 miles)south of Baghdad, Ctesiphon was founded on the site of an older town, Opis, in the second century BC by Parthian King Mithridates.

The site was once one of the most popular tourist destinations in a country which is the cradle of many civilizations.

"There were busloads of tourists coming. Today we hardly get 100 visitors a week," said Wadeeh Kherdeb, custodian of the site for the past 15 years, who remembers such illustrious sightseers as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the late King Hussein of Jordan. The rare visitors today are soldiers, Iranian pilgrims or Indian travelers.

Now this is cool Paleontologists Use Computer to "Morph" Deformed Fossils Back to Their Original Shapes

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It's bad enough that fossils, buried deep in layers of rock for thousands or millions of years, may be damaged or missing pieces, but what really challenges paleontologists, according to University at Buffalo researchers, is the amount of deformation that most fossils exhibit.

That's why Tammy Dunlavey, a master's degree candidate in the Department of Geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, and her colleagues are working on a computational method to morph fossils back to their original shapes by calculating and excising the deformation."Our goal is to develop computer programs that can reliably solve the deformation problem," noted Dunlavey, who on April 1 presented research on a new suite of "retrodeformation" programs at a Geological Society of America meeting (North-Central section) in St. Louis.

Nottinghamshire man tries to improve TV reception with mobile antenna




Uncovering the secrets of one historic village

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have started a survey at King's Clip-stone in an attempt to unearth the secrets of the site's past.The historical site is one of three in Notting-hamshire where work began this week in a
major £100,000 archaeological survey — with Annesley motte and bailey and Worksop castle also the focus of hi-tech investigations.

The surveys will help to reveal the precise location of mediaeval walls and hearths, helping experts piece together answers to questions about the buildings' histories.They hope to uncover for the first time how and what they were constructed from, how long they were used for and the size and layout of the buildings. Says project manager Ursilla Spence: "The potential of this survey to help us get a much more complete picture of the history of Sherwood Forest and north Nottinghamshire is immense.

Archaeology work draws to a close

Excavation work by archaeologists at the Canons Marsh area of Bristol is about to finish.

Members of Cotswold Archaeology have been working on the site in the city centre for eight months. They have dug six trenches.The team has found remains of a medieval building, as well as streets and lanes linking the
building to the waterfront and Canons Marsh.

Towering Mysteries

Who built them and why? An amateur archaeologist tries to get to the bottom of some astonishing structures in Tibet and Sichuan Province, ChinaMartine "Frederique" Darragon set out from New York City for the hinterlands of western China and Tibet in 1998 to pursue an interest in the endangered snow leopard when she fell under the spell of another elusive phenomenon: old stone towers, some vaguely star-shaped and some more than 100 feet tall, scattered across the foothills of the Himalayas. Yet when she asked local residents about the towers—Who built them? When? Why?—nobody seemed to have a clue. What she had stumbled upon was rare indeed: a riddle in plain sight.

RICH, VIBRANT COMMUNITY LIFE OF RURAL MAYA DESCRIBED BY BU ARCHAEOLOGIST

Two thousand years ago, a trek through present-day Central America would have rewarded the traveler with a look at the Maya civilization in full flower — from the bustle of activity and architectural wonders of urban centers to the quieter pace and more utilitarian structures of rural communities. For today’s traveler, the voices of Maya’s well-studied urban centers remain vibrant. The voices of rural Maya, however, remain silent,
largely unfound.

A team of archaeologists from Boston University have spent the past four years gathering and analyzing items left behind by Maya living in rural Xibun, a community in the Sibun River Valley of central Belize. With the researchers’ coaxing, the Xibun artifacts are providing a story of life among rural Maya during the civilization’s Late Classic Period (600 – 900 A.D.).

Archaeoastronomy news Ancient builders followed stars

Many Bronze Age monuments in Europe and Africa were erected with the Sun and other stars in mind, says Dr Michael Hoskin, a UK historian of astronomy.

In one survey of 2,000 tombs he has shown how many were built to face the rising Sun - a symbol of the afterlife. A second study of stone structures in Menorca reveals they were set up to view the constellation of Centaurus.

The Cambridge University researcher has discussed his work at the 2004 National Astronomy Meeting in Milton Keyes.

Kind of a trivial story actually. More detail here. Archaeoastronomy has its share of fruitcakes, but there's an awful lot of interesting stuff going on in this field. Expect more good work in the future.

Computer technology to provide virtual tour of a mummy

Computer technology has found the gentle way to raise the dead - by introducing the virtual mummy. Nesperennub was a temple priest who died at about 35 nearly 3,000 years ago in Egypt. In preparation for eternal life, priests extracted his brain and his eyes, eviscerated his organs and embalmed his body with herbs, cedar oil and naphthalene. Then they wrapped him in bandages soaked with beeswax to keep out moisture and corruption, and buried him at Thebes on the west bank of the Nile, with a resin bowl accidentally stuck to his head.

I couldn't resist cutting off the quote at the resin bowl part. That's just too funny. But the story is a good one. This is another application of remote sensing, albeit on a smaller scale. What a glorious day it will be when things (mummies, deposits) don't have to get torn apart to see how they're put together. A hundred years from now, I firmly believe archaeologists will be shaking their heads at all the destruction we engaged in.

Update: More info at the SGI press release website. They're a bit more generous in their assessment of the resin bowl:

Most intriguingly, researchers have identified for the first time a mysterious, caplike object on Nesperennub's head as a ceramic bowl. This has never before been seen and raises new questions about ancient Egyptian burial rituals.

Yeah, they were often slipshod.

Controversy

revisits Shroud of Turin

A documentary on the Shroud of Turin suggests the cloth, a religious relic once

believed to be the burial shroud of Christ, might be authentic, and some archaeologists are

crying foul.

Experts have widely considered the 14-foot-long linen sheet, which has been kept since 1578

in a cathedral in Turin, Italy, a forgery since carbon-dating tests were performed in 1988.

Those tests placed its origin at A.D.1300.

But Secrets of the Dead: Shroud of Christ (PBS, tonight, 8 ET/PT, check local listings),

presents evidence that narrator Liev Schreiber says is "making it possible it was indeed the

shroud of Christ"

I didn't even know this was on last night and just happened to channel surf to it (errr,

only because Enterprise was a rerun). This is one of those things that will never die

because there will always be someone around to hype it up (note: I am on the side of it

being a medieval forgery). Nevertheless, here are some related links:

Original Nature paper describing the

C-14 tests that gave the medieval date.

Walter McCrone on the composition of image and

the supposed problems with the C-14 dating.

For those with subscriptions via universities or other institutions, two papers in The

Journal Of Archaeological Science regarding the C-14 dating:


href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WH8-45N4V66-2V-1&_cdi=6844&_

orig=search&_coverDate=01%2F05%2F1996&_sk=999769998&view=c&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkWz&_acct=C0000297

18&_version=1&_userid=582538&md5=ec31cc9c6470b9b40ab8c765a6dc558e&ie=f.pdf">Kouznetsov et

al.: Effects of fires and biofractionation. . .


href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WH8-45N4V66-30-1&_cdi=6844&_

orig=search&_coverDate=01%2F05%2F1996&_sk=999769998&view=c&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkWz&_acct=C0000297

18&_version=1&_userid=582538&md5=cb2571ddee68476aa8ccbe61ba21f211&ie=f.pdf">Jull, Donahue,

and Damon commenting on Kouznetsov et al.

Couple more from Radiocarbon on the fire/contamination issue:

Attempt to Affect the

Apparent 14C Age of Cotton by Scorching in a CO2 Environment

An Experiment to

Refute the Likelihood of Cellulose Carboxylation



href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/nyregion/07mbrf.html?ex=1082001600&en=5f464ee6083d4c

ac&ei=5062">Metro Briefing (NYC)

TRENTON: STATE LANDMARKS PLANTATION SITE A five-acre site where archaeologists

unearthed evidence of a northern slave plantation that the Marquis de Lafayette and George

Washington visited has been granted state landmark status, officials said yesterday. Known

as the Beverwyck site, near Parsippany and Troy Hills, it was a parking lot scheduled for

expansion in the late 1990's when workers came across artifacts. Archaeologists eventually

found slave shackles, buttons from Revolutionary War-era uniforms and other items that tied

the site to a 2,000-acre mid-18th-century plantation known as Beverwyck. The Department of

Environmental Protection plans to recommend the property for federal landmark status as

well.Stacy Albin (NYT)

That's the whole article, it's down the page a bit.

News from Bangladesh
href="http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/04/07/d40407011616.htm">Govt to preserve Narsingdi

site

The government will preserve the archaeological site in Narsingdi where the

country's oldest road, dating back to 450 BC, was unearthed last month.

State Minister for Cultural Affairs Selima Rahman assured the excavators of this during her

visit there yesterday, when they asked her for immediate government steps to preserve the

site.

Selima hailed the excavation team of Jahangirnagar University (JU) Department of Archaeology

for its epoch-making work 'in quest of the country's root' and for unravelling further

evidences of the region's glorious past.

"This findings will help us know better our thousands of years-old history and make us proud

of our civilisation," Selima wrote in the visitors' book.

And still more from Bangladesh
href="http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/04/06/d40406011313.htm">Archaeological sites in

disarray

Country's archaeological sites are poorly maintained as the Department of

Archaeology under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs is limping due to fund crisis and

manpower shortage.

Important archaeological sites and monuments such as Mount of Raja Harishchandra in Savar

and Roelbari in Netrokona are left without conservation although digging was done there more

than 10 years ago.

The department also failed to conserve the largest bronze statue of Buddha found at Bhoj

Raja's house in Mainamati. Famous archaeological sites in the capital like Bara Katara and

Chhoto Katara and Sat Gombuj Mosque also lack proper maintenance.

Worship site

indicates people's rich spiritual life 7,400 years ago

A worship site discovered in the Gaomiao ashes in central China's Hunan province

indicates the people there enjoyed a rich spiritual life 7,400 years ago, making it the

oldest religious site discovered so far in China, according to archeologists.

Located at west Hunan's Hongjiang city, the Gaomiao ashes is one of the well-preserved sites

of the Neolithic age.

The provincial archaeological institution organized an excavation at the 15,000-sq-m

historical site from February to March, and discovered sites built for worship together with

a number of utensils used in the worship, like white gallipots and ivory engravings.

More from Iraq Controversy

revisits Shroud of Turin

A documentary on the Shroud of Turin suggests the cloth, a religious relic once

believed to be the burial shroud of Christ, might be authentic, and some archaeologists are

crying foul.

Experts have widely considered the 14-foot-long linen sheet, which has been kept since 1578

in a cathedral in Turin, Italy, a forgery since carbon-dating tests were performed in 1988.

Those tests placed its origin at A.D.1300.

But Secrets of the Dead: Shroud of Christ (PBS, tonight, 8 ET/PT, check local listings),

presents evidence that narrator Liev Schreiber says is "making it possible it was indeed the

shroud of Christ"

I didn't even know this was on last night and just happened to channel surf to it (errr,

only because Enterprise was a rerun). This is one of those things that will never die

because there will always be someone around to hype it up (note: I am on the side of it

being a medieval forgery). Nevertheless, here are some related links:

Original Nature paper describing the

C-14 tests that gave the medieval date.

Walter McCrone on the composition of image and

the supposed problems with the C-14 dating.

For those with subscriptions via universities or other institutions, two papers in The

Journal Of Archaeological Science regarding the C-14 dating:


href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WH8-45N4V66-2V-1&_cdi=6844&_

orig=search&_coverDate=01%2F05%2F1996&_sk=999769998&view=c&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkWz&_acct=C0000297

18&_version=1&_userid=582538&md5=ec31cc9c6470b9b40ab8c765a6dc558e&ie=f.pdf">Kouznetsov et

al.: Effects of fires and biofractionation. . .


href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WH8-45N4V66-30-1&_cdi=6844&_

orig=search&_coverDate=01%2F05%2F1996&_sk=999769998&view=c&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkWz&_acct=C0000297

18&_version=1&_userid=582538&md5=cb2571ddee68476aa8ccbe61ba21f211&ie=f.pdf">Jull, Donahue,

and Damon commenting on Kouznetsov et al.

Couple more from Radiocarbon on the fire/contamination issue:

Attempt to Affect the

Apparent 14C Age of Cotton by Scorching in a CO2 Environment

An Experiment to

Refute the Likelihood of Cellulose Carboxylation



href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/nyregion/07mbrf.html?ex=1082001600&en=5f464ee6083d4c

ac&ei=5062">Metro Briefing (NYC)

TRENTON: STATE LANDMARKS PLANTATION SITE A five-acre site where archaeologists

unearthed evidence of a northern slave plantation that the Marquis de Lafayette and George

Washington visited has been granted state landmark status, officials said yesterday. Known

as the Beverwyck site, near Parsippany and Troy Hills, it was a parking lot scheduled for

expansion in the late 1990's when workers came across artifacts. Archaeologists eventually

found slave shackles, buttons from Revolutionary War-era uniforms and other items that tied

the site to a 2,000-acre mid-18th-century plantation known as Beverwyck. The Department of

Environmental Protection plans to recommend the property for federal landmark status as

well.Stacy Albin (NYT)

That's the whole article, it's down the page a bit.

News from Bangladesh
href="http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/04/07/d40407011616.htm">Govt to preserve Narsingdi

site

The government will preserve the archaeological site in Narsingdi where the

country's oldest road, dating back to 450 BC, was unearthed last month.

State Minister for Cultural Affairs Selima Rahman assured the excavators of this during her

visit there yesterday, when they asked her for immediate government steps to preserve the

site.

Selima hailed the excavation team of Jahangirnagar University (JU) Department of Archaeology

for its epoch-making work 'in quest of the country's root' and for unravelling further

evidences of the region's glorious past.

"This findings will help us know better our thousands of years-old history and make us proud

of our civilisation," Selima wrote in the visitors' book.

And still more from Bangladesh
href="http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/04/06/d40406011313.htm">Archaeological sites in

disarray

Country's archaeological sites are poorly maintained as the Department of

Archaeology under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs is limping due to fund crisis and

manpower shortage.

Important archaeological sites and monuments such as Mount of Raja Harishchandra in Savar

and Roelbari in Netrokona are left without conservation although digging was done there more

than 10 years ago.

The department also failed to conserve the largest bronze statue of Buddha found at Bhoj

Raja's house in Mainamati. Famous archaeological sites in the capital like Bara Katara and

Chhoto Katara and Sat Gombuj Mosque also lack proper maintenance.

Worship site

indicates people's rich spiritual life 7,400 years ago

A worship site discovered in the Gaomiao ashes in central China's Hunan province

indicates the people there enjoyed a rich spiritual life 7,400 years ago, making it the

oldest religious site discovered so far in China, according to archeologists.

Located at west Hunan's Hongjiang city, the Gaomiao ashes is one of the well-preserved sites

of the Neolithic age.

The provincial archaeological institution organized an excavation at the 15,000-sq-m

historical site from February to March, and discovered sites built for worship together with

a number of utensils used in the worship, like white gallipots and ivory engravings.

More from Iraq Cracks in ruined vault of Iraq's ancient Ctesiphon

palace

CTESIPHON, Iraq: Long deserted by tourists, the ruined vault of Iraq's ancient

Ctesiphon palace, which boasts the highest single-span brick arch in the world, is

developing worrisome cracks although experts say it is unlikely to collapse.

Located on the northeast bank of the Tigris River, 30 kilometers (20 miles)south of Baghdad,

Ctesiphon was founded on the site of an older town, Opis, in the second century BC by

Parthian King Mithridates.

The site was once one of the most popular tourist destinations in a country which is the

cradle of many civilizations.

"There were busloads of tourists coming. Today we hardly get 100 visitors a week," said

Wadeeh Kherdeb, custodian of the site for the past 15 years, who remembers such illustrious

sightseers as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the late King Hussein of Jordan. The rare

visitors today are soldiers, Iranian pilgrims or Indian travelers.

Now this is cool
href="http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=66490009">Paleo

ntologists Use Computer to "Morph" Deformed Fossils Back to Their Original Shapes

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It's bad enough that fossils, buried deep in layers of rock for

thousands or millions of years, may be damaged or missing pieces, but what really challenges

paleontologists, according to University at Buffalo researchers, is the amount of

deformation that most fossils exhibit.

That's why Tammy Dunlavey, a master's degree candidate in the Department of Geology in the

UB College of Arts and Sciences, and her colleagues are working on a computational method to

morph fossils back to their original shapes by calculating and excising the deformation.

"Our goal is to develop computer programs that can reliably solve the deformation problem,"

noted Dunlavey, who on April 1 presented research on a new suite of "retrodeformation"

programs at a Geological Society of America meeting (North-Central section) in St. Louis.

Nottinghamshire man tries to improve TV reception with mobile antenna




Uncovering the secrets of one historic village

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have started a survey at King's Clip-stone in an attempt to

unearth the secrets of the site's past.

The historical site is one of three in Notting-hamshire where work began this week in a

major £100,000 archaeological survey — with Annesley motte and bailey and Worksop castle

also the focus of hi-tech investigations.

The surveys will help to reveal the precise location of mediaeval walls and hearths, helping

experts piece together answers to questions about the buildings' histories.

They hope to uncover for the first time how and what they were constructed from, how long

they were used for and the size and layout of the buildings.

Says project manager Ursilla Spence: "The potential of this survey to help us get a much

more complete picture of the history of Sherwood Forest and north Nottinghamshire is

immense.

Archaeology work draws to a

close

Excavation work by archaeologists at the Canons Marsh area of Bristol is about

to finish.

Members of Cotswold Archaeology have been working on the site in the city centre for eight

months. They have dug six trenches.

The team has found remains of a medieval building, as well as streets and lanes linking the

building to the waterfront and Canons Marsh.

href="http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues04/apr04/phenomena.html">Towering

Mysteries

Who built them and why? An amateur archaeologist tries to get to the bottom of

some astonishing structures in Tibet and Sichuan Province, China

Martine "Frederique" Darragon set out from New York City for the hinterlands of western

China and Tibet in 1998 to pursue an interest in the endangered snow leopard when she fell

under the spell of another elusive phenomenon: old stone towers, some vaguely star-shaped

and some more than 100 feet tall, scattered across the foothills of the Himalayas. Yet when

she asked local residents about the towers—Who built them? When? Why?—nobody seemed to have

a clue. What she had stumbled upon was rare indeed: a riddle in plain sight.

RICH, VIBRANT COMMUNITY

LIFE OF RURAL MAYA DESCRIBED BY BU ARCHAEOLOGIST

Two thousand years ago, a trek through present-day Central America would have

rewarded the traveler with a look at the Maya civilization in full flower — from the bustle

of activity and architectural wonders of urban centers to the quieter pace and more

utilitarian structures of rural communities. For today’s traveler, the voices of Maya’s

well-studied urban centers remain vibrant. The voices of rural Maya, however, remain silent,

largely unfound.

A team of archaeologists from Boston University have spent the past four years gathering and

analyzing items left behind by Maya living in rural Xibun, a community in the Sibun River

Valley of central Belize. With the researchers’ coaxing, the Xibun artifacts are providing a

story of life among rural Maya during the civilization’s Late Classic Period (600 – 900

A.D.).

Archaeoastronomy news
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3592631.stm">Ancient builders followed stars

Many Bronze Age monuments in Europe and Africa were erected with the Sun and

other stars in mind, says Dr Michael Hoskin, a UK historian of astronomy.

In one survey of 2,000 tombs he has shown how many were built to face the rising Sun - a

symbol of the afterlife.

A second study of stone structures in Menorca reveals they were set up to view the

constellation of Centaurus.

The Cambridge University researcher has discussed his work at the 2004 National Astronomy

Meeting in Milton Keyes.

Kind of a trivial story actually. More detail
href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994849">here. Archaeoastronomy

has its share of fruitcakes, but there's an awful lot of interesting stuff going on in this

field. Expect more good work in the future.

Computer technology

to provide virtual tour of a mummy

Computer technology has found the gentle way to raise the dead - by introducing

the virtual mummy. Nesperennub was a temple priest who died at about 35 nearly 3,000 years

ago in Egypt. In preparation for eternal life, priests extracted his brain and his eyes,

eviscerated his organs and embalmed his body with herbs, cedar oil and naphthalene.

Then they wrapped him in bandages soaked with beeswax to keep out moisture and corruption,

and buried him at Thebes on the west bank of the Nile, with a resin bowl accidentally stuck

to his head.

I couldn't resist cutting off the quote at the resin bowl part. That's just too funny. But

the story is a good one. This is another application of remote sensing, albeit on a smaller

scale. What a glorious day it will be when things (mummies, deposits) don't have to get torn

apart to see how they're put together. A hundred years from now, I firmly believe

archaeologists will be shaking their heads at all the destruction we engaged in.

Update: More info at the
href="http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/2002/march/mummy.html">SGI press release

website. They're a bit more generous in their assessment of the resin bowl:

Most intriguingly, researchers have identified for the first time a mysterious,

caplike object on Nesperennub's head as a ceramic bowl. This has never before been seen and

raises new questions about ancient Egyptian burial rituals.

Yeah, they were often slipshod.

">Cracks in ruined vault of Iraq's ancient Ctesiphon

palace

CTESIPHON, Iraq: Long deserted by tourists, the ruined vault of Iraq's ancient

Ctesiphon palace, which boasts the highest single-span brick arch in the world, is

developing worrisome cracks although experts say it is unlikely to collapse.

Located on the northeast bank of the Tigris River, 30 kilometers (20 miles)south of Baghdad,

Ctesiphon was founded on the site of an older town, Opis, in the second century BC by

Parthian King Mithridates.

The site was once one of the most popular tourist destinations in a country which is the

cradle of many civilizations.

"There were busloads of tourists coming. Today we hardly get 100 visitors a week," said

Wadeeh Kherdeb, custodian of the site for the past 15 years, who remembers such illustrious

sightseers as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the late King Hussein of Jordan. The rare

visitors today are soldiers, Iranian pilgrims or Indian travelers.

Now this is cool
href="http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=66490009">Paleo

ntologists Use Computer to "Morph" Deformed Fossils Back to Their Original Shapes

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It's bad enough that fossils, buried deep in layers of rock for

thousands or millions of years, may be damaged or missing pieces, but what really challenges

paleontologists, according to University at Buffalo researchers, is the amount of

deformation that most fossils exhibit.

That's why Tammy Dunlavey, a master's degree candidate in the Department of Geology in the

UB College of Arts and Sciences, and her colleagues are working on a computational method to

morph fossils back to their original shapes by calculating and excising the deformation.

"Our goal is to develop computer programs that can reliably solve the deformation problem,"

noted Dunlavey, who on April 1 presented research on a new suite of "retrodeformation"

programs at a Geological Society of America meeting (North-Central section) in St. Louis.

Nottinghamshire man tries to improve TV reception with mobile antenna




Uncovering the secrets of one historic village

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have started a survey at King's Clip-stone in an attempt to

unearth the secrets of the site's past.

The historical site is one of three in Notting-hamshire where work began this week in a

major £100,000 archaeological survey — with Annesley motte and bailey and Worksop castle

also the focus of hi-tech investigations.

The surveys will help to reveal the precise location of mediaeval walls and hearths, helping

experts piece together answers to questions about the buildings' histories.

They hope to uncover for the first time how and what they were constructed from, how long

they were used for and the size and layout of the buildings.

Says project manager Ursilla Spence: "The potential of this survey to help us get a much

more complete picture of the history of Sherwood Forest and north Nottinghamshire is

immense.

Archaeology work draws to a

close

Excavation work by archaeologists at the Canons Marsh area of Bristol is about

to finish.

Members of Cotswold Archaeology have been working on the site in the city centre for eight

months. They have dug six trenches.

The team has found remains of a medieval building, as well as streets and lanes linking the

building to the waterfront and Canons Marsh.

href="http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues04/apr04/phenomena.html">Towering

Mysteries

Who built them and why? An amateur archaeologist tries to get to the bottom of

some astonishing structures in Tibet and Sichuan Province, China

Martine "Frederique" Darragon set out from New York City for the hinterlands of western

China and Tibet in 1998 to pursue an interest in the endangered snow leopard when she fell

under the spell of another elusive phenomenon: old stone towers, some vaguely star-shaped

and some more than 100 feet tall, scattered across the foothills of the Himalayas. Yet when

she asked local residents about the towers—Who built them? When? Why?—nobody seemed to have

a clue. What she had stumbled upon was rare indeed: a riddle in plain sight.

RICH, VIBRANT COMMUNITY

LIFE OF RURAL MAYA DESCRIBED BY BU ARCHAEOLOGIST

Two thousand years ago, a trek through present-day Central America would have

rewarded the traveler with a look at the Maya civilization in full flower — from the bustle

of activity and architectural wonders of urban centers to the quieter pace and more

utilitarian structures of rural communities. For today’s traveler, the voices of Maya’s

well-studied urban centers remain vibrant. The voices of rural Maya, however, remain silent,

largely unfound.

A team of archaeologists from Boston University have spent the past four years gathering and

analyzing items left behind by Maya living in rural Xibun, a community in the Sibun River

Valley of central Belize. With the researchers’ coaxing, the Xibun artifacts are providing a

story of life among rural Maya during the civilization’s Late Classic Period (600 – 900

A.D.).

Archaeoastronomy news
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3592631.stm">Ancient builders followed stars

Many Bronze Age monuments in Europe and Africa were erected with the Sun and

other stars in mind, says Dr Michael Hoskin, a UK historian of astronomy.

In one survey of 2,000 tombs he has shown how many were built to face the rising Sun - a

symbol of the afterlife.

A second study of stone structures in Menorca reveals they were set up to view the

constellation of Centaurus.

The Cambridge University researcher has discussed his work at the 2004 National Astronomy

Meeting in Milton Keyes.

Kind of a trivial story actually. More detail
href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994849">here. Archaeoastronomy

has its share of fruitcakes, but there's an awful lot of interesting stuff going on in this

field. Expect more good work in the future.

Computer technology

to provide virtual tour of a mummy

Computer technology has found the gentle way to raise the dead - by introducing

the virtual mummy. Nesperennub was a temple priest who died at about 35 nearly 3,000 years

ago in Egypt. In preparation for eternal life, priests extracted his brain and his eyes,

eviscerated his organs and embalmed his body with herbs, cedar oil and naphthalene.

Then they wrapped him in bandages soaked with beeswax to keep out moisture and corruption,

and buried him at Thebes on the west bank of the Nile, with a resin bowl accidentally stuck

to his head.

I couldn't resist cutting off the quote at the resin bowl part. That's just too funny. But

the story is a good one. This is another application of remote sensing, albeit on a smaller

scale. What a glorious day it will be when things (mummies, deposits) don't have to get torn

apart to see how they're put together. A hundred years from now, I firmly believe

archaeologists will be shaking their heads at all the destruction we engaged in.

Update: More info at the
href="http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/2002/march/mummy.html">SGI press release

website. They're a bit more generous in their assessment of the resin bowl:

Most intriguingly, researchers have identified for the first time a mysterious,

caplike object on Nesperennub's head as a ceramic bowl. This has never before been seen and

raises new questions about ancient Egyptian burial rituals.

Yeah, they were often slipshod.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIG UP PAST AT TORRY BATTERY

Visitors to the Torry Battery in Aberdeen were given a guided tour of the site to watch archaeologists in action at a free open day on Saturday.

The work is part of an overall project to record, protect and interpret the monument, which was originally built between 1859 and 1861.

The open day included tours of the site, a talk on its history and an opportunity to see the excavation in progress.

Yawn. More looting in Iraq Archaeologists mourn plunder of Iraq's treasures

DHAHIR, Iraq (Reuters) - It's low-tech and bloodless but it is a crime which is slowly robbing humanity of the roots of its own existence.

Across southern Iraq, often in the dead of night, tomb raiders and temple thieves are systematically looting ancient treasures that have lain undiscovered for thousands of years.

Using spades and working by the light of makeshift petrol lamps, armed gangs are digging into the shifting sands at the edges of the Euphrates river plain to spirit away priceless artefacts buried with the Sumerian dynasties 5,000 years ago.

Before archaeologists can properly identify and excavate the sites, scattered across the river valley south of Babylon, the looters have already torn apart ancient temples, palaces and tombs that hold clues to the foundations of civilisation.

Looting is certainly a problem in Iraq, but it's a problem everywhere. This quote is particularly bizarre: "With more funding and training, he says, a stop could be put to the thieving." I'm sure countries like Egypt and Thailand and Cambodia, etc., would certainly like to know how to do this. You can slow it down, but you can't stop it unless you have guards stationed at every site in the country and guards to watch the guards.

Related story here.

Jewish remains give clues on crucifixion

Not much is known about Yehohanan Ben Hagkol, whose name in English means John, son of Hagkol. The name was carved in ancient Hebrew letters on an ossuary containing his bones in a tomb north of Jerusalem's Old City in 1968.

At the time of his death he was between 24 and 28 years old, stood around five feet seven inches tall (170 cm) and was in excellent health -- until he was hoisted on to a cross some time between AD 50 and 70.

"He could have been a thief, he could have been a rebel. To his nation he may have been a hero," said archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferias, who discovered Ben Hagkol's remains during the excavation of an ancient Jewish family tomb.

Web publishing update The Public Library of Science an experiment in free web publishing of scientific articles:

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.

The internet and electronic publishing enable the creation of public libraries of science containing the full text and data of any published research article, available free of charge to anyone, anywhere in the world.

Immediate unrestricted access to scientific ideas, methods, results, and conclusions will speed the progress of science and medicine, and will more directly bring the benefits of research to the public.

To realize this potential, a new business model for scientific publishing is required that treats the costs of publication as the final integral step of the funding of a research project. To demonstrate that this publishing model will be successful for the publication of the very best research, PLoS will publish its own journals. PLoS Biology launched its first issue on October 13, 2003, in print and online. PLoS Medicine will follow in 2004.

PLoS is working with scientists, their societies, funding agencies, and other publishers to pursue our broader goal of ensuring an open-access home for every published article and to develop tools to make the literature useful to scientists and the public.

Currently, only biology articles are submitted (they are running it like a regular publisher with "journals" featuring different disciplines) but a medical journal is coming online soon.

Puzzle of corn's origins coming together

MONTREAL -- The scientific puzzle pieces are fitting together to form a definitive picture of the origin of corn, says a Duke University plant geneticist who has proposed that the world's most important food crop originated in an ancient cross between two grasses.

Mary Eubanks described the latest evidence that corn, or maize, originated as a cross between teosinte and gamagrass, or Tripsacum, in a talk Friday, April 2, 2004, at a symposium on maize held at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (www.saa.org) in Montreal. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

This is fascinating and important. THe origin of maize has been controversial for quite a while, although in the late 1980s the tide of opinion shifted towards teosinte as the sole wild ancestor. This was partially helped by the popularization of

MNA's Archaeology Day a big hit with all ages

There was never a dull moment at the Museum of Northern Arizona's Archaeology Day on Saturday, March 27. The museum has been hosting this event since 1984 and really knows how to bring the wonderful world of archaeology alive for the public.

During the day-long celebration, almost 300 people of all ages meandered around exhibits and booths, set up both indoor and outside. The event was timed to honor March as Arizona Archaeology Awareness Month.

"It was a remarkable team effort," said Dianna Van Sanford, MNA's volunteer and docent coordinator. "There were more than 22 volunteers, and that doesn't include speakers. They worked very well together. The parking lot kept refilling and kids were enjoying educational activities throughout the entire museum. A lot of people were saying that it felt very much like the old days, especially internally. Everyone chipped in -- sort of like the MNA family together again. It was a really meaningful event."

Revenge of the archaeology nerds Photo mosaic of Revenge planned

MOREHEAD CITY -- A picture could be worth a thousand words to state underwater archaeologists working with the remains of what is believed to be the sunken flagship of the pirate Blackbeard.

This week, divers with the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project will double as shutterbugs in an attempt to document the wreckage in a photo mosaic.

"What we're trying to get here is a good, accurate overall image of the site," said Chris Southerly, project archaeologist.

There has never been a good, comprehensive image of the site made, though the QAR project did do some still-frame work from a video shot in 1997, Southerly said.

Archaeologists will be able to compare the photo mosaic not only with that video, but also with drawings and any future photographs taken, to see what geological changes are occurring over the years from storms and everyday currents, Southerly said.

It's never too late Shining new light on our past

A budding archaeologist has discovered a century-old trove of information about Florida's ancient history.

She is a middle-aged ex-florist with a passion for archaeology. He was a pioneering 19th-century scientist, whose innovative methods and brash ways created devoted followers and bitter enemies.

No one could have figured that the disparate lives of Phyllis Kolianos and Frank Hamilton Cushing would ever intersect. But 100 years after Cushing's untimely death, their tales became joined by the discovery of a manuscript that had been lost for a century.

Kolianos announced in March that she had found the document, shining new light on the archaeology of Southwest Florida and rehabilitating the reputation of the enigmatic anthropologist.

In case you were interested in later Egyptian Dynastic history, Chris Bennet has a large section of his website to the Ptolemies, that is, the successors to Alexander in Egypt.

Internet publishing debateAccess to the literature: the debate continues, is the journal Nature's entry into the continuing debate on how to best integrate web-based publishing with the traditional methods of peer-review and distribution of academic papers. (Subsribers only, unfortunately)

This debate has profound implications for science. The traditional publishing regime, it seems to me, works sufficiently well to separate the wheat from the chaff of scientific work through editorial and peer review. However, it is expensive and time consuming. Ideally, of course, the Internet promises to cut the cost of distribution dramatically and lessen the lag time between submission and publication. OTOH, as we all know, the Internet generally isn't known for producing a great deal of accurate or well-argued information. The major question in Internet publishing is: Who will act as gatekeepers? And correspondingly, how needed are gatekeepers?

From Egypt's Al-Ahram OnlinePresentation of arms

The military glory of the Ancient Egyptians will soon be revealed at Luxor Museum's new extension. Nevine El-Aref toured its halls and watched inspectors putting the artefacts in place

In the early days of Ancient Egypt, warriors used only simple equipment to make war on foreign tribes. Wooden arrows, knives and bone boomerangs served their purposes quite efficiently. For a long time there was little need to improve weaponry.

However, when the eastern Hyksos invaded Egypt and took control of the Delta, the role of the armed forces in Egyptian society changed. The Theban Pharaohs of the 17th and 18th dynasties adopted new weapons and military strategies as a prerequisite for liberating the country and re- establishing control. Thus the Egyptian military spirit was born. The army turned more and more professional, the nobility taking on the role of officers, fighting among the charioteers and king's men.

Dig Days:The Pyramid builders at Giza

We have been excavating the tombs of the "Pyramid builders" at Giza since 1990. They have provided us with important information about the workmen who constructed the Pyramids. Through this discovery we have learnt about their lives, diet and their daily work schedule. For the first time archaeologists learnt important facts about the men and women who dedicated their lives to building the magnificent Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. I have decided to share this information with you in a series of articles for Al-Ahram Weekly prior to publication in a special volume. In this, and the forthcoming articles, I will take you into the Great Pyramid Age.

One of the biggest falsehoods about the Great Pyramid of Khufu is that it was built by slaves. The discovery of the tombs of the Pyramid builders on the Giza Plateau has finally and conclusively put this theory to rest. We now know with certainty that the Pyramids were built by Egyptian men and women -- not slaves! Slavery, while it existed in Ancient Egypt, was not an important part of the economy, especially in the Old Kingdom, and, moreover, it is important to examine the meaning of the word "slavery". We think of slavery as the ownership of a person. In my opinion, in Ancient Egypt the word "slavery" meant a person who worked for another, like the modern term "servant".

The construction of Pyramids was a national project. The massive monument symbolised the might and power of the royal house. In Ancient Egypt, it was essential for the Pharaoh to build a tomb to ensure his rebirth as a god in the afterlife and thus magically maintain the right order of the universe. Every household from Upper to Lower Egypt participated in the construction of the Pharaoh's tomb (pyramid). Every family helped by sending food, materials and manpower. From hieroglyphic inscriptions and graffiti we infer that skilled builders and craftsmen probably worked year-round at the Pyramid construction site. Peasant farmers from the surrounding villages and provinces rotated in and out of the labour force.

Digging into ancient Egypt

When Bill Needle draws a loaf of bread or a royal falcon, he's not just doodling. He's creating hieroglyphics, the picture script of ancient Egyptian priests.

"I am one of 11 Egyptologists in the United States that can read hieroglyphics," he said, a smile of pride etched on his face.

The Cape Girardeau resident and retired Southeast Missouri State University art professor has built his reputation creating personalized hieroglyphic name drawings in brown ink on white paper at arts and crafts shows across the country.

"A lot of people know me as an artist around town," he said. But Needle said he is also a serious scholar who is as interested in the history of ancient Egypt as the artwork.

I swear there are more than 11. . . . .


Treasure alert!Byzantine gold hoard found near Abusir

The Hungarian team working in Abusir, 45 kilometers west of Alexandria, has uncovered a gold cache including five gold coins and a bracelet dating back to the Byzantine age (4th century AD).

The items were unearthed in the area of Tap Osiris, Which is an ancient site built on the shores of Mariut Lake.

Antiquities Market updateAntiquities dealer plans to return loot to Egypt

One of the world's leading antiquities galleries has agreed to return two limestone monuments smuggled out of Egypt in the mid-1990s. A lawyer for the dealer, Phoenix Ancient Art, which operates galleries in Geneva and New York, said he expected the steles to be turned over to Egypt next week.
.
The owners of Phoenix Ancient Art, Ali and Hicham Aboutaam, said their father, Sleiman Aboutaam, who died in 1998, had bought the three steles and never said who the seller was. The brothers said they were unaware that the steles, subject of articles in The New York Times in February, had been looted.

That's actually the entire story right there. No real need to click.



Cool web site of the dayKV 57, King Horemheb's tomb is now up at OsirisNet. Both explanation and pictures.

Horemheb, of non-royal origin, began his military career during the reign of Akhenatun. A brilliant soldier, he ascended quickly in the hierarchy and became a General, then General-in-chief. His military career continued under the reign of Tutankhamun, during whom it is extremely probable that he exercised the reality of power. In the confusion of the post-Amarna period, and under the reign of a child-king, it is very probable that the cohesion of the country and the stability of its borders rested largely on him.
Nevertheless, he was unable to seize power for himself at the death of Tutankhamun, and had to let the old man Ay ascend to the throne for a few years.

With this ones death, Horemheb was finally able to take up the Double-crown.

Oops State Works To Save Artifacts After Flooding

New Mexico is taking steps to ensure 10 million archeological artifacts are safe after a water pipe broke last week in the building where the artifacts are housed, drenching more than 1,500 boxes of historical items.

Last week, nearly 50,000 gallons of hot water washed into the basement where the artifacts are housed, said Stuart Ashman, of the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs.

The leakage was stopped immediately on Monday and pumps were installed to draw the water out of the basement, he said.

"As soon as it was possible, the material was moved to the upper floors of the building," he said.

Artifacts on the moveA new showcase for American Indians

The word Potomac means "where the goods are brought in" and it dates from the local Indian tribe rudely displaced here centuries ago by colonial whites intent on a New World. The word seems perfect for the whiff of irony and history in the air this month as the last of 800,000 Indian artifacts - priceless goods, in fact - were trucked in from New York City to become the bedrock treasure of the new National Museum of the American Indian.

Even incomplete, the museum stands as a modernistic cynosure, defiantly staring down its immediate neighbor, the gleaming white Capitol, where so many treaty promises to American Indians were written and broken. The museum marks a grand turning point in that history, a sacred federal site ceded to Indian management and broadcasting a message of hardy survival, not tribal extinction.

Ostrich beads indicate early symbolic thought

Stone Age beads revealed by archaeologists on Wednesday could be the strongest evidence yet that humans developed sophisticated symbolic thought much earlier than once thought.

The ostrich egg beads and numerous other artefacts, including ochre pencils, carved bone and stone tools, were recovered from the Loiyangalani River Valley, in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.

The archaeologists who discovered the relics have yet to date them precisely, but believe they originate from the African Middle Stone Age - between 280,000 and 45,000 years ago. This is because they were found in a sedimentary layer along with many items characteristic of the Middle Stone Age.

Definitely worth considering this quote: "It is certainly debatable whether ostrich egg beads are symbolic," says Paul Pettitt, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in the UK. "If they can convincingly date them, they also need to demonstrate that they are symbolic rather than simply decorative."

Iraq antiquities updateordan Ready to Return Stolen Antiquities to Iraq

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan is ready to return to Iraq more than 700 stolen antiquities that were seized from smugglers, the official news agency Petra said on Tuesday.

Quoting the director-general of Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Fawaz Khreisha, Petra said the pieces, confiscated by security and customs authorities, were well preserved, scientifically documented and ready for delivery upon the request of the Iraqis.

The department has sent a compact disc with pictures of the artifacts to the Iraqi authorities renovating the National Museum in Baghdad which was looted after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) last year.

Care to dig? ShovelBums.org.

As an archaeologist with an anthropology degree in one hand and a trowel in the other I have been where you are,wondering how in the heck I am I going to get a job? I lucked out, found a flyer in my anthro department for an excavation in North Dakota, got the job, and began to develop a personal network of fellow professional "shovel bums" to find out where the digs and surveys where happening by telephone, fax or letter. This was a tough way to do it. And I found as my skills became specialized it became harder to find a job that fit your niche.

I didn't like it, and as my peers and I had often discussed, there had to be a better way.

So I founded Shovelbums.org in 1999 to provide Archaeologists, Academics, historians, archivists, GIS and remote sensing specialists, and CRM firms with a free resource for advertising job in our field, and nothing else. No e-mail discussion, no web sites to visit. Just the plain and simple philosophy - jobs in your profession direct to your mailbox.

This is the first I've heard of this site/group so I can't vouch for them. But it looks like a good resource for those interested in doing fieldwork. Most work has been found by word of mouth, making it kind of tough to break into. Send email with comments on your experiences.


Archaeologists launch major excavation

Stone-age treasures may soon come to light as a team of archaeologists launches what's billed as one of Norway's largest excavations ever. More than half-a-million objects are believed to lie below the site that ultimately will house a North Sea gas terminal.

Around 50 archaeologists will work on the site at Aukra on Norway's west coast for the next year, all in an effort to trace its history before construction of the Ormen Lange gas terminal begins.

Norwegian law calls for the developers of the terminal, led by industrial concern Norsk Hydro, to cover the entire cost of the excavation, estimated to hit NOK 70 million (about USD 10 million.)

Stone Age child's bones found in Aukra

Norwegian archaeologists were ecstatic this week after making a rare discovery at Aukra in Romsdal, north-central Norway. They've confirmed finding bone fragments from a child who must have lived in the area around 6,000 years ago.

The discovery was made in connection with excavations underway for the new land-base for the Ormen Lange gas field in the North Sea. Industrial concern Norsk Hydro is developing the gas field but its excavations are being conducted in cooperation with archaeologists.

Researchers know that the area around Aukra featured ancient settlements, and several thousand items already have been found and recorded.

Those darn destructive tourists again. . ."SCA: Tourism could destroy antiquities in 100 years"

In 100 years' time, our monuments will collapse, not because of an earthquake but because of tourism. Such was the recent warning from Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) Dr. Zahi Hawas.

Assume that 500 tourists visit the tomb of Tut Ankh Amoun tomb every day, and that every visitor leaves 20 grammes of water vapour. Within 20 years, the daily total 10,000 grammes of vapour will have combined with elements in the stone and slowly destroy the tomb, Dr Hawas said.

"Based on this assumption, the Great Pyramid or Cheops will last only another 100 years and the Sphinx 200 years. Thus tourism is destroying our treasures," Dr Hawas said in an interview with the weekly magazine al- Musawwar.

That's the Catch-22 of Egyptian archaeology: Seeing the monument brings in much needed tourist dollars, but the same tourists also wreak havoc on the monuments themselves (though generally only on the tombs; most of the other destruction has come from rising groud water and pollution). It's not really bad behavior by tourists, it's just the fact that they breath and need light to see. They will eventually find a balance, because I don't believe it's ever going to be feasible to just lock everything up -- but who knows, maybe it'll come to that.


More Neanderthals Archaeologists attempt to solve Neanderthal mystery

40 000 years ago the human race was represented by two distinct categories: Homo Neandertalensis and Homo Sapiens.

They did not differ much in appearance. However, judging by the DNA analysis, they could not have had common offspring. Neanderthals had a completely different skull structure; they were involved in primitive social groups and used manual labor to ensure survival. The two types managed to coexist rather peacefully. Then suddenly, something happened; something that not even scientists can clearly explain. Suddenly, Neanderthals completely disappeared from the earth's surface.

Finally, the time has come to solve the mystery.

FULL FRONTAL. . . . .antiquity Pharaoh's portrait in frontal view

Egyptologists have pieced together fragments of the first known ancient portrait of a pharaoh drawn from the front rather than in profile, a Spanish archaeologist said Thursday.

The archaeologist said the portrait, which appears to show either Tuthmosis III or his mother Hatshepsut, was painted on a wooden board buried in the courtyard in front of a tomb in the southern town of Luxor.

Some fascinating news from Egypt that has not yet reached the popular press, sent to us by Eugene Cruz-Uribe after a recent trip to Egypt. Surely this April 1 will become significant in the annals of Egyptology. (Long, but very interesting)

In Kharga Oasis the reconstruction of Hibis temple has taken a
new twist. A group of German engineers recently visited the site of
the partially dismantled Hibis temple at the behest of the SCA. Their
initial report praised the fortitude that the contractors, Osman Ahmed
Osman ("The Arab Contractor"), have endured in their 2 year hiatus in
work on the site. In a controversial move in 2001 Zahi Hawass had
ordered all work on the site halted leaving the Osman engineers with
little to do but watch the paint dry. Plans for reconstruction of the
dismantled temple bits are going to move forward once special stone
adhesive imported from Europe is acquired. "We can make the glue
very quickly", the German engineers were reported to have said. It
was hinted that this stone adhesive will become the standard for
use in reconstructing all the major monuments in the Nile Valley.
The SCA is using the oasis site as a test ground for the adhesive
out of sight of the interference of tourists in the valley. The
contractor, Osman Ahmed Osman, is heard to have the inside
track on the multi-million dollar contracts that may be awarded.

In Luxor the Egyptological community is abuzz with the recent
announcements concerning the discovery of additional colossi at
the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III. "We have uncovered 12
additional colossi in and around the site", says Hourig Sourouzian,
the head of the archaeological team. "Several were found in the
tourist shops along the road and we spent a great deal of time
in negotiations with the owners to get them back." Once the
colossi are re-erected there are plans to make the site a large
open air museum. The SCA is planning on charging an entrance
fee of 40 L.E. and have begun erecting 10 meter screens so
tourists cannot take photographs of the site while it is under
excavations.

Also in Luxor, with the appearance of volume 3 of the Khonsu
Temple series (Graffiti from the Roof) Chicago House Director
Ray Johnson has announced that the Chicago House team will
return to Khonsu temple in the near future to finish the epigraphic
work on that temple. The reason for this sudden change in
direction for the American team was explained as a reaction to
the appearance of a recent volume by a German scholar on
the sanctuary of the Khonsu complex. "How can they possibly do
a final publication if we haven't done the epigraphy yet?", one
Chicago House staff member was heard to say. Ray Johnson
stated that he has put the Khonsu temple on the schedule for the
2017-18 field season. "This will allow us time to finish a couple
of other minor projects first," he said.

In the Valley of the Kings there have been a number of activities.
An Italian photographer has been contracted by the SCA to
photograph the tomb of Sety I. The photographer, Sandro Vannini
of Viterbo, Italy (www.sandrovannini.com), will use new digital
photographic methods to produce a children' s pop-up volume.
"We hope they will be all the rage," he noted. Zahi Hawass, Director
General of the SCA, is sponsoring the project and has reluctantly
agreed to write the forward to the volumes for a small honorarium.
"I do so love kids," he said.

Also in the Valley the American team lead by Otto Schaden working
on the tomb of Amenmesse (KV 10) reported the discovery of a
bunch of dirt. "It's very nice dirt", he was quoted as saying. The
team was allowed to move the dirt from the front of the tomb and
deposit it in the open pits left by the now closed British expedition
to the Valley. This immediately caused a firestorm of controversy
with the team of Kent Weeks (American University in Cairo and
author of the best selling forthcoming volume on the KV Maps).
"Now where are we supposed to put the dirt from our excavations?",
Prof. Weeks stated. Rumors have it that negotiations are under way
to allow him to use the tomb of Merneptah as a temporary storage
facility. "It is a big tomb," said an unnamed SCA gaffir from the
valley. The other possibility heard by this reporter would be to
allow the balloon operators to ferry in tourists directly to the valley
and take out the debris on their return trip. "This would be a very
good use of available resources," said Mohammed Mustafa, owner
of Air Balloon Tours in Luxor.

Ted Brock, associate on Kent Weeks' Theban Mapping Project,
was "shocked" to discover that there were Demotic graffiti written
on the walls of some of the royal tombs. "It is amazing how careless
and insensitive those Demots were," he was heard to say. Eugene
Cruz-Uribe (Northern Arizona University and a noted Demotic
graffiti scholar), confirmed the existence of these Demotic graffiti.
"It never ceases to amaze me how so many useful Greek graffiti
were pushed out by those Demotic scribes." Reports that
Cruz-Uribe was going to head an international expedition to record
the 50 or so graffiti were not confirmed. "We have to build a dig
house first," was all Cruz-Uribe would say.

In Aswan the local tourism officials have announced plans to
dismantle the small temple to Isis found within the city. This is
part of a larger regional Aswan plan to consolidate all of the
monuments on one or two or three or four conveniently placed
islands in the Nile. "We have a lot of unemployed ferry boat
drivers and this would be a boon to the local economy,"
one tourism official was quoted as saying. In a separate
announcement, ferry officials have posted a standard fee for
foreign archaeologists who wish to use a ferry boat to visit
any of the archaeological islands. Fees are set at a standard
400 L.E. "There have been reports of severe emotional
trauma by certain ferry boat drivers who are forced to
wait 5, 6 and even 7 hours waiting for these archaeologists
to view the sites. What can take them so long?" stated
Mohammed Mustafa, the head of the ferry boat drivers union.

In middle Egypt, Samir Anis, director of the Minya office of the
SCA, has opened negotiations with the Tourism and Security
Police from Assyut province to take over control of all of
the SCA operations and oversight of foreign expeditions in the
area. "It was just becoming too much of a hassle to fill out
all of the forms." Mohammed Mustafa, chief of Security and
Tourism Police welcomed the opportunity. "We have always
tried to work closely with the SCA officials. This agreement
will remove one more bureaucratic layer from the process
and make it much easier for foreign archaeologists to do their
work." Details of the agreement are not known but are
rumored to include the proviso that any foreign mission
working in Middle Egypt will need to be housed in Assyut and
must pay the wages of the drivers of the security vehicles and
pay for the gasoline used on each security vehicle accompanying
the archaeologists. "With all of the government cutbacks, our
budgets are strained to the breaking point," quoted an
unnamed Security official. "Plus, it's only fair."

In Cairo the site for the new Cairo Museum and Theme Park on the
Giza plateau has been finalized. Groundbreaking is scheduled for
the end of July of one of these years. The hold up on this vital
project has been interference from the Egyptian highways
department. Mohmmaed Mustafa, Director General, was
quoted as saying, "They [the SCA officials] had drastically
under-estimated the number of exit ramps needed for this
project. We finally have an agreement where 4 exit ramps
and 2 entrance ramps will be built on the new Cairo - Giza
ring road." No date for construction has been announced.

In a surprise move, Zahi Hawass has announced that he is offering
to give the Sphinx to the British Museum. This move will reunite
the long separated beard of the Sphinx with the remainder of
the monument. There is an expectation that the British Museum
will have to pay freight charges to move the blocks to London.
"I heard they were giving the Elgin Marbles back to Greece
and they will have this big exhibition space vacant. I thought
this would be a nice gesture on the part of the Egyptian people."
British Museum officials had no comment, but Tony Blair,
Prime Minister, was quoted outside of 10 Downing Street as
saying, "I can finally get to see that bloody thing up close."

Lastly, in a very surprise announcement Zahi Hawass also
announced that he plans on stepping down next year as
head of the SCA. He is recommending that the next
Director General of the SCA be a foreigner. "Having a
foreigner as Director will recreate the golden years of Egyptology.
Things were so good back then." Dr. Hawass says he plans to
relax and write a few more books during his retirement, but does
not discourage talk that he is in line to be the next Minister of
Culture.

Archaeologist digs at site of first Charleston market

Charleston City Hall stands on the site of the city's first marketplace and an archaeological dig has produced bones, bricks and shards of pottery.

Archaeologist Martha Zierden and students have dug several 5-foot-square pits beneath City Hall, one of the first phases of a $5 million renovation of the structure standing on the city's famed Four Corners of Law.

The dig revealed undisturbed layers of soil from the 1750s to the late 1600s, when the market opened at the northeast corner of Broad and Meeting streets. The intersection is known as the Four Corners of Law because structures there represent city, state, federal and religious law.

Kudos.SA archaeologist 'knighted'

Cape Town - Professor Christopher Stuart Henshilwood, Director of the African Heritage Research Institute in Cape Town and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bergen, Norway has knighted by the French government.

Henshilwood is a graduate of the University of Cape Town and read for his PhD at Cambridge University. For the past five years he has been a research member at a national scientific centre in Bordeaux that does research into human origins.

He directs the Blombos cave project, a major archaeological research initiative near Still Bay about 300km from Cape Town. His research has contributed significantly to the international debate on the origins of "modern" human behaviour.

Graves Museum update Board OK's museum sale

A divided board of trustees agreed Tuesday to sell the Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History, signaling the end of longtime archaeologist and museum namesake Gypsy Graves' role with the institution.

Graves, 74, vowed to fight the decision, along with her daughter Kate Gaskill. Both women served on the board of trustees.

''It's a shame,'' said Graves, still looking fit despite her use of a cane. ``It's a travesty and an injustice.''

The American Maritime Officers is under contract to buy the Dania Beach museum.

''The battle has just begun,'' Gaskill said. ``We're going to fight like hell.''

Underground attractionsKentucky's Mammoth Cave attracts visitors eager to explore America's second-oldest tourist site.

Mammoth Cave doesn't have the colorful stalagmites and stalactites that make some caves famous. Lighting is minimal; signs are nonexistent, and there's no pipe organ playing "Shenandoah," like the one at Luray Caverns in Virginia.

Yet, Mammoth's claims to fame are many. It's the longest cave in the world, with more than 360 miles of connected tunnels. It's also the second-oldest tourist attraction in America, after Niagara Falls, with guided tours offered since 1816. Huts used by an 1840s tuberculosis colony still stand, as do mining pits from 1812.

Most amazing of all is how far back Mammoth's human connections stretch: Mummies have been found in the cave, and you still can see petroglyphs (cave drawings) that are thousands of years old.

Is it fake?Swindle suspected in relic sale

A Guilin city man appeared in Beijing court Monday, charged in connection to a swindle involving falsely identified cultural relics.

The case, which was heard in Beijing Yanqing County People's Court Monday, is centred around the 1.2-million-yuan (US$145,000) sale of a fake Song Dynasty porcelain.

Authorities believe that in early 2001, Li Shiyuan, a 54-year-old native of the city in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, took a porcelain artifact to Beijing. He claimed it was produced at the Ruzhou Kiln, in today's Linru County, in Central China's Henan Province, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The area is famous for quality Song Dynasty porcelain artifacts.

Rare tombs of Tang Dynasty unearthed in Sichuan

Chinese archeologists have unearthed two skeletons and over 1,000 ancient coins from five tombs of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in Sichuan Province, southwest China.

The tombs, with well-preserved outer coffins inside that were built of stone, were found in early March at a construction site in Mianyang City and excavation work was completed last week, saidSong Jianmin, head of the city's archeological team.

He said the two skeletons, which were unearthed from two of thefive tombs, had remained intact, but the inner wooden coffins havedecayed over the years.

A jar full of ancient coins was found close to a smaller tomb that was only about one meter long, said Song.