Here are a few links to work being carried out by the French in and around the harbor in Alexandria. This is the site of several late period temples and, notably, the "Pharos" lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Much of this area was destroyed and subsequently submerged by seismic activity over the past couple thousand years; the lighthouse itself was eventually toppled by earthquakes in the early 14th century AD. More info on the Pharos here. Complete list of the Seven wonders here.
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/en/index.html
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/en/index.html
http://www.underwaterdiscovery.org/english/projects/alexandria/default.asp
Anchors a-weigh! Replica of Bronze Age boat begins Olympic voyage
A replica of a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age boat - built from clues left on ancient inscriptions and artwork - set sail from the island of Crete Saturday to be showcased at the Athens Olympics.
Twenty-two volunteer rowers, shielded by baseball hats and sun cream, will take the wooden vessel on an 11-stop route from Crete that was followed by the ancient Minoans, Europe's earliest civilization.
The 15-meter (49-foot) Minoa, with no nails or joints, is made with cypress tree logs lashed together with ropes and made watertight by layers of canvas, resin and animal fat.
"It's a very strong boat ... but its creaks a lot,'' the Minoa's captain, Apostolos Kourtis, told The Associated Press.
Antiquities market update Experts clash over stolen petroglyphs in U.S. court in Reno
Expert witnesses disagree about the value, age and authenticity of American Indian petroglyphs two men are accused of stealing from national forest land bordering a Reno subdivision.
One scientist testifying for the defense Friday suggested federal prosecutors had not done the proper scientific homework to establish the age of the rock art that local tribal leaders say is at least 1,000 years old.
But archaeologists for the Forest Service and the state of Nevada said they are confident the etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep are older than the 100 years required to prove they are a federally protected archaeological resource.
Death from the sky Volcano 'drove up UK death toll'
UK experts suggest a cloud of volcanic gases and particles sweeping south from the Laki Craters event of that year may have killed more than 10,000 people.
The team combed climate data, burial records and contemporary accounts that reported a "volcanic haze" and health problems in the English population.
The University of Cambridge study is carried in the Bulletin of Volcanology.
The eruptions at the Laki Craters began on 8 June, 1783, and continued for eight months.
An estimated 122 megatonnes of sulphur dioxide was released, along with smaller amounts of other gases, from explosive fissures and vents and from lava flows.
Remote sensing update Bird’s-Eye View of the Amazon: Airborne Archaeologist Challenges the Myth of a Pristine Wilderness
In the office of a typical archaeologist, you would expect to find things like stone tools, pottery fragments, and maybe even a few Wooly Mammoth bones. But Clark Erickson is no typical archaeologist. Oversize rolls of aerial photographs are stacked into tubular pyramids on a desk and worktable in his University Museum office. They fill up file cabinets and populate a storage room. At last count, he had about 700 giant aerial and satellite images—almost all of them picturing some region of the Amazon.
Money quote:
The more time Erickson spent in South America, the more he kept running into, and collaborating with, a group of sympathetic researchers, including Denevan and anthropologist William Balée. Together, the three men challenged conventional thinking about the Amazon. To begin with, they dismissed “the pristine myth” that the Americas before Columbus were an untouched Eden. Denevan countered that, in fact, much of the Amazon is anthropogenic—human made—and the sheer number of engineered earthworks and their size, he concluded, would have required a massive workforce.
This is becoming increasingly apparent; Much of tropical South America as we see it today is not a holdover from prehistoric times, but a fairly recent phenomenon. Much of the Maya land, for example, were it to be viewed during the height of Maya civilization, would look nothing like the jungle we see today, but full of agricultural fields. In other words, one giant clearcut. While "sustainable" in some sense, this agricultural intensity could probably not survive protracted droughts which periodically hit the region during the 9th century AD (see here for more info).
More from China Cliff carving spotted at Mount Lushan
A 1,300-year-old cliff carving was recently found at a temple at Mount Lushan in east China's Jiangxi Province.
This was the oldest cliff carving ever spotted at Mount Lushan,a world cultural heritage site, and the only carving dating back from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), a Chinese archaeologist said.
It was discovered in an ancient temple on the northern part of the scenic mountain during a recent cultural relics survey in the region.
The obverse side of the object was engraved with three big Chinese characters "Haihui Temple", the original name of the ancient temple, plus the title of the reign of Empress Wu Zetian during the Tang dynasty, which was 1,309 years ago.
The reverse side bears a poem written in 1738. Currently, the lower part of the carving is still submerged in mud.
That's the whole thing. But here's more to the tombs found in the Shaanxi Province we reported on last week:
Historic tombs unearthed in China
A large group of tombs thought to be those of rulers from China's Zhou Dynasty (c. 1100 B.C. -- 256 B.C.) have been uncovered in Qishan, Shanxi Province, in the region of the ancient capital of Zhouyuan, the Mainichi has learned.
The find is expected to be one of the biggest since the Yinxu Ruins were uncovered at the beginning of the 20th century.
"Perhaps this will be one of the biggest discoveries in the world this century," said Taketsugu Iijima, a professor at Komazawa University in Tokyo. "There is a possibility that remains of a Zhou castle will be uncovered in the near future.
Save the Hills! Campaigners gather in fight to save Silbury Hill
Campaigners gathered at Silbury Hill, at Avebury, on Saturday, four years after the summit collapsed, to air their concerns over its future.
Heritage Action, a group dedicated to the care of threatened and neglected prehistoric sites, believe urgent action is needed to prevent further damage.
The group wants English Heritage, which manages the site, to take heed of its rallying cry fix the hill.
Avebury resident and campaigner Pete Glastonbury said: "Local people are now aware of the situation and many archaeologists are very concerned.
"The word is rapidly getting out to the wider public that nothing has been done and they're disgusted with English Heritage's inaction."
Silbury Hill is the world's largest man-made prehistoric mound.
More international cooperation in Iran Iran and France to Conduct Joint Archaeological Studies in Yazd
Tehran University, the Archaeological Research Center of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, and French CNRS (centre national de la recherché scientifique) join together to carry out archaeological studies in Yazd province as part of a project aiming at preparing archaeological plans of the area at the Mesolithic era.
"I luff gooooold!
World to See Afghanistan's Fabled Bactrian Gold
The world could soon catch a glimpse of Afghanistan's fabled Bactrian gold, as preparations get under way to exhibit some of the 20,000 or so pieces that make up the country's most important ancient treasure trove.
Dates and locations have yet to be finalized but the United States, France, Germany, Japan and Greece, are among countries interested in hosting the 2,000-year-old haul that has miraculously remained intact despite years of war and upheaval.
While other important archaeological sites are plundered or have been ruined by war, the Bactrian gold discovered by a Soviet team just before the Red Army invasion of 1979 has had a number of narrow escapes, adding to its allure and mystery.
Major excavation to open Viking graves
Expectations are high as experts start opening up ancient Viking gravesites over the next few weeks. "This is an incredibly exciting project," says Lars Erik Gjerpe of the University of Oslo's Historic Museum in Norway.
Gjerpe, in charge of the major dig at Gulli Farm in Vestfold, said he and his team expects to find weapons and jewelry, including jewelry brought back to Norway by Vikings more than 1,100 years ago.
The site lies adjacent to the busy E-18 highway, which is due to be expanded later this year. Archaeologists have the summer to find what they can following preliminary investigations last year.
And yet more having to do with Troy Get it right, say archaeologists
Down in the dusty excavations where archaeologists are seeking to discover the truth about ancient Troy there is clearly a degree of irritation at the fuss generated by Troy the movie.
The souvenir-sellers may be buzzing as a result of the extra attention, hoping the link with Brad Pitt will boost visitor numbers the way a visit from Persian superstar King Xerxes did 2000 years before.
But the folk at Project Troia, run by the Universities of Tubingen, in Germany, and Cincinnati, USA - who have been excavating the site since 1988 - are not so happy.
Before the film was released, they issued a statement saying they would "make no statements or commentaries concerning the movie. We were not at all involved in the conception of the film and we are of the opinion that archaeologists should pass no judgment on this kind of film or on any other manifestation of contemporary art (ie theatre, literature or fine arts). This is the job of art critics".
But then they do it anyway.
We admit that we here at ArchaeoBlog are irritated by many of these commentaries, not only regarding Troy but any (ancient) period piece. It's.A.Movie fer pete's sake. If any film were to be made that accurately depicted Life in the Ancient World (or the life of the typical archaeologist for that matter) it would immediately be marketed as a miracle cure for insomnia.
And with that in mind. . .Meet Your Neighbor: Archaeologist no Indiana Jones
Rolla Shaller is an archaeologist by trade. But don't look for the fedora hat and bullwhip, he's not that kind of archaeologist.
"The Indiana Jones thing, it sounds good, but there's not nearly that much excitement in the real thing," Shaller said. "If Indiana Jones had to do what we do, I'm afraid he might get bored."
As assistant curator of archaeology for Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, the 66-year-old Shaller does the real work of archaeology, which is much more likely to involve rooting around in old papers than dodging giant boulders and swinging across spike-filled pits with a whip.
He's obviously never heard the famous Flaming Toilet of Death story, which we will recout at some future date.