Lucy in Texas with Diamonds. . . .Ethiopia to Exhibit 'Lucy' Fossil in United States

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia is to allow "Lucy" its world-famous, 3.2-million-year-old skeleton to travel abroad for the first time for an exhibition in the United States that it hopes will encourage more visits by American tourists.

The fossil's discovery in 1974 was a landmark in the history of uncovering the origins of humanity, representing the most complete human-like fossil to have been found until that time.

Lucy, stored in a vault in an Ethiopian museum, and other Ethiopian artifacts including crowns and scepters of ancient monarchs are due to be put on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas in 2006.

This would be great and probably worthwhile going to see in Houston. It's a very significant skeleton. Also, read Don Johansen's book Lucy: The Beginnings of HUmankind. This book has apparently gotten many people hooked enough on paleoanthropology to go into it as a profession. I confess I read it as a young undergraduate and, while not pushing me into archaeology, definitely helped to seal the deal. It's a fasinating account of the process of carrying out fieldwork in this field and the life of one who does this stuff. Some of the interpretations are, of course, a bit dated, but read it because it's a good read and a time capsule of current thought on human evolution in the mid-late 70s.

ANd you will never ever have difficulty spelling 'Australopithecus' again.

Hunley update: Hunley Findings Put Faces on Civil War Submarine Crew

The identities of the crew of the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley are coming to light just days before the men's remains are to be buried. The first submarine to sink an enemy ship, the Hunley itself sank off South Carolina in 1864, was found in 1995, and was raised in 2000.

On a cold February night in 1864, eight men squeezed through the tiny hatches of the H.L. Hunley, a strange new warship tied up at a dock in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. They crawled or duckwalked through the 4-foot-tall (1.2-meter-tall) passageway to their places on a long, low bench. Each of them sat down at a hand crank attached to the Hunley's propeller shaft.

These eight men were the living power plant for a revolutionary machine—a submarine that could attack an enemy ship from underwater. Led by Confederate Lt. George Dixon, these men would literally dive into the pages of history when the submerged Hunley attached a torpedo to the U.S.S. Housatonic and blew it up. The Union warship was helping to enforce the maritime blockade of Charleston that was slowly strangling the rebellious Confederate States of America's ability to fight the Civil War.

Re-opening 400-year-old Medici murder mystery

Rome - American and Italian scientists will probe a centuries-old murder mystery when they examine remains of 49 members of the Medici family which ruled Florence for 300 years, the city museum department said.

Using latest technology, researchers will try to find out about the Medici lifestyle including what they ate and how they died, when the family vault is opened this month.

Above all they will try to solve the mystery of Francesco Medici and his wife, who died within a day of each other in 1587 of what appeared to be malaria but was probably poisoning.

Recent archaeology Authorities to exhume body of woman slain in 1948

A judge in northern Illinois has ordered the exhumation of a woman who was killed more than 55 years ago.

Ogle County Judge Stephen Pemberton yesterday approved a request from the brother of Mary Jane Reed.

Reed was 17 when she and her boyfriend were shot to death on June 26th, 1948, in the town of Oregon, about 25 miles southwest of Rockford. No arrest was ever made in their deaths.

More on ancient Olympic athletes Winning at Olympia

This summer in Atlanta athletes, officials, spectators, promoters, and reporters will once again witness the spectacle of the modern Olympics. Many will assume that the modern games are a true reflection of the ancient ones, that the events and ceremonies and the ideology of universal brotherhood and amateurism recall the Olympics of Greece's golden age. They would be surprised to learn that the ancient contests were quite different from our own, and that Greek athletes were not amateurs.

A generation ago the study of ancient sport focused on antiquarian concerns--how Greeks threw the discus or how far they could jump. Glossing over the violent, erotic, and materialistic aspects of Greek sport, and downplaying abuses and opportunism, scholars simply accepted idealistic notions about who these athletes were and why they competed. Now, using a variety of evidence, we are demythologizing the ancient Olympics. Excavations at Olympia and at the sites of other games have led to a new understanding of athletic participation and the role of spectators in ancient sport. Archaeology and art history, especially epigraphy and the reexamination of vase paintings, have allowed us to test and revise ancient literary accounts of how athletes trained, worshiped, competed, won, and celebrated, and how they were motivated, rewarded, and honored.

Note this quote at the beginning: You say, "I want to win at Olympia." ...If you do, you will have to obey instructions, eat according to regulations, keep away from desserts, exercise on a fixed schedule at definite hours, in both heat and cold; you must not drink cold water nor can you have a drink of wine whenever you want.

So, really, nothing's changed that much, except that now we pay personal trainers $65 an hour to tell us the same thing.

Shroud update Turin Shroud Back Side Shows Face

The ghostly image of a man's face has emerged on the back side of the Turin Shroud, the piece of linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus's body after the crucifixion, according to new digital imaging processing techniques.

The discovery adds new complexity to one of the most controversial relics in Christendom, venerated by many Catholics as the proof that Christ was resurrected from the grave and dismissed by some scientists as a brilliant medieval fake.

Ethical issues haunt testing of famous remains

You may take secrets with you to the grave, but it's getting harder to keep them there.

With the advent of powerful genetic tests, there's nothing to stop someone from teasing medical secrets from a lock of hair or bit of bone.

Now a group from Chicago is drawing up what may be the first set of ethical guidelines for biohistorical analysis. It will address, among other things, whether scientists should be allowed to test the remains of historical figures only after getting the consent of their descendants.

I tend to side with Shapiro who sees no real need for official guidelines, though it is apparent that the ethics of dealing with human remains has been evolving. This is a fluid time in which the discipline (anthropology generally, archaeology and physical anthropology specifically) is beginning to reassess its role as the sole arbiter of what is to be done with human remains. Much in North America has to do with NAGPRA and the need to address Amerindian concerns over burials. As the Kennewick Man case shows, this is still a controversial area, as tribal affiliation -- and even the "Native American-ness" of very old remains -- can often be difficult to assess. My hope is that through legislative and legal means, as well as the simple give and take and consultation that takes place in individual cases locally, we will arrive at some sort of consensus regarding what to do with these things.

Critics slam Executive plan to strip ancient monuments

HUNDREDS of Scotland’s ancient monuments are to be stripped of their protected status in a controversial move by the Executive.

Almost 800 archaeological sites considered until now to be of national importance will be dropped from Historic Scotland’s official schedule.

The change follows a decision by the Executive to restrict protection to monuments which meet new criteria of "cultural significance" and "spiritual value".

Critics have attacked the move, accusing the Executive of "betraying Scotland’s heritage" and clearing the way for developers to build on protected sites.

Scotland has a host of significant archaeological treasures, including locations dating from prehistoric times.

Two from Florida Nautical archaeologist offers view of past

Dr. Coz Cozzi cut an imposing figure as he explained his slides of nautical archaeology to a rapt audience at the Lemon Bay Historical Society. The nautical archaeologist was chosen by Mote Marine Laboratory to head up a world-class shipwreck research program.

Mote Marine plans to conduct shipwreck research throughout southwest Florida beginning in Charlotte Harbor, but including Tampa and Sarasota bays and the Florida Keys, all of which have a rich maritime past.

The Mote Marine archaeologist exuded a contagious enthusiasm for his subject; our submerged past. He ticked through hundreds of years of history, as he explained his methods of retrieving lost history from underwater ruins with a magnetometer and a side scan sonar. A magnetometer detects the presence of iron, and a side scan sonar finds objects that jut up from the bottom.

Hundreds of archaeology sites in Gainesville vulnerable to destruction 4/12/2004

There is history right below your feet.

Scott Mitchell collections Manager for Florida Archaeology at Museum of Natural History. He says there are hundreds of archaeology sites in Gainesville in addition to many more that people probably aren't aware of across Alachua County. The bad news is these sites are vunerable to an array of destruction. Mitchell explains three major types of destruction. The first type of destruction is natural causes such as erosion, the second is the development and growth, and the third is illicit digging for private market sales. Alachua County most commonly experiences the second type, development.

Roman Forum's oldest church to unveil its treasures

ROME -- Buried for 12 centuries by a landslide and closed to the public for 24 years, the oldest Christian church in the Roman Forum is being opened for a limited time, offering glimpses of Byzantine frescoes that changed scholars' views of medieval art.

Guided tours of the Santa Maria Antiqua, nestled under the imperial palaces of Rome's Palatine Hill, begin this weekend and continue through May while restoration efforts continue.

Werner Schmid, a restoration expert working on the project, said Thursday the tours will give visitors a chance to see frescoes from the mid-6th century to the mid-8th century.

More on the ancient pet cat

Oldest known evidence of cat taming found in Cyprus, researchers report in Science

Earliest pet cats may have lived long before rise of Egyptian civilization
This news release is also available in French.

Around 9,500 years ago, a human, a cat and a rich variety of offerings were buried together on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Scientists have now discovered the remains of this burial, believed to be the oldest known evidence of a special friendship between humans and cats.

The findings appear in a Brevia article in the 9 April 2004 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

The ancient Egyptians are generally thought to have been the first to domesticate cats, breeding them to produce a distinct new species around 4,000 to 3,900 years ago. Although researchers have long suspected that humans began taming wild cats much earlier, they had limited evidence supporting this idea.

Antiquites Market update French seize Niger artefacts

French customs officials say they have seized a large number of prehistoric artefacts they believe were pillaged from archaeological sites in Niger.

The items were found in the baggage of a passenger who arrived on a flight from Niger's capital, Niamey, at the end of last month.

They included more than 5,000 stone arrowheads and 90 carved stone artefacts, dating back 5,000 years.

More from China Village boasts recorded history of 6,000 years

Chinese archaeologists have discovered a village which boasts a recorded history of more than 6,000 years in central China's Henan province.

Yuyang Village, located 22 km northwest of Anyang city, in northern Henan, records the chronological development process of Chinese history, constituted by locals, in a period of over 6,000 years with vivid, colorful relics, said Tang Jigen, head of the Anyang Work Station under the Archaeological Research Institute ofthe Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Tang said most of the relic items spotted in the village were fragments of daily life used by common folks, like cooking utensils, pottery jars, and other kinds of pottery and porcelain ware.

. . .

Archaeologists also found objects and clues reflecting the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953). . .

Is that what it was called. Rather like The War of Northern Aggression.

Or rather, "The wa-ah of Nawthun Aggression".

And now from Ireland Researchers identify new archaeological sites on north coast

Researchers from the University of Ulster's Centre for Maritime Archaeology have begun a major study to identify new archaeological sites of interest on the north coast and Rathlin Island.

The archaeologists have already uncovered 600 new sites in a study at Strangford Lough and are hopeful that their latest project will be as successful.
Rosemary McConkey, an Archaeologist from the School of Environmental Sciences, said: “Although the north coast is a very different environment than the sheltered waters of Strangford, preliminary results have revealed a rich archaeological record along these shores. These include prehistoric settlement sites, such as the sand dunes around the Bann, where recent excavation uncovered new collections of flint tools and pottery.

'Sensational' discoveries unearthed in Roman armoury

ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Germany have described a Roman weapons dump discovered near the city of Göttingen as a "sensational find" that is yielding valuable military artefacts.

Excavations on the site have just started, but more than 250 metal objects, most of them weapons or tools used by Roman legionnaires in 10BC, have been found. They include several rare examples of a soldier’s axe, an all-purpose Swiss army knife of its day.

"We are particularly pleased with these: they are a rare find because they were usually so prized by the legionnaires that they rarely left their sides," said the chief archaeologist, Klaus Grote. "It is a sensational find for research purposes."

First news update of the week. There's gobs of it again, so we will be making sporadic postings, trying desperately to catch up.

INTERNATIONAL Experts come together to try to save Tara

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), comprising of 8,000 members, and other international voices are uniting to save the Hill of Tara, Ireland's premier national monument from being bissected by the M3 motorway.

A statement on the AIA web site reads, in part: "The Hill of Tara is one of the most important archaeological sites in Ireland. In use since ca. 4000 B.C., at first as a burial ground and religious center, it was also a center of Irish kingship and a key medieval site. It stands in the midst of a larger landscape containing a wealth of related sites and monuments. Now, Tara and the surrounding landscape are threatened by a proposed major highway (the M3) that will cut through the landscape and divorce Tara from the related sites that surround it.

Mysteries of the East in the Wild Wild West MAGAZINE examines Deadwood's Chinatown

The struggles and successes of Chinese immigrants who lived and worked in the American West are profiled in a special historic preservation issue of "South Dakota History," the official journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society.

Rose Estep Fosha, senior archaeologist with the South Dakota State Historical Society, presents the historical archaeology of the Chinese in Deadwood in "The Archaeology of Deadwood's Chinatown: A Prologue." Fosha's article includes color photographs of artifacts recovered during excavations conducted from 2001 through 2003.

Port Angeles: Archaeology contract still unsigned, tribe reports

Lower Elwha Klallam tribal officials say they are still waiting for a contract to be signed between the state and the archaeologist in charge at the graving yard to begin full-scale recovery of human remains and artifacts.

``We were notified late Friday that the contract has not been signed yet,'' said Frances G. Charles, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Council secretary/treasurer.

In Israel, a New Highway Leads to an Ancient Christian Past

ETANYA, Israel — This seaside town had a simple plan to add an interchange to the country's main coastal highway. But in a small land with a long history, almost anyplace one sticks a shovel in the ground, one strikes an ancient civilization.

As is often the case, the earthmovers and cranes are not allowed to churn up a construction site until the state archaeologists first get a peek at what lies beneath.

Sure enough, just a foot below the surface, a Christian community from the Byzantine era, dating from either the fifth or sixth century, presented itself just to the west of bustling Highway 2, and right in the middle of the planned interchange on the southern edge of Netanya.

Question is, will covering it "with a thick layer of asphalt" destroy it? Really, if the whole thing can be covered up without actually destroying things, is that such a bad thing? Let's all say it again: The ground is a very safe place for artifacts.

(China) Over 80 articles unearthed in a newly discovered tomb

Archaeologists claim that they discovered a tomb of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11 century B.C.- 771 B.C.) Tuesday at the Zhouyuan site, Zhuangbai Village in Fufeng County of northwest China' s Shaanxi Province.

Over 80 items were unearthed from the tomb including two bronzeitems, four earthen articles, seven jade articles, and some lacquer ware and shell ornaments.

Jammin' wit' Amun Dialogue with Amun

Siwa Oasis lies on the edge of the Great Sand Sea only 50kms from the Libyan border. It is almost surprisingly beautiful: if one thinks one has already seen all that Egypt has on offer, Siwa proves there is even more. Outcrops of honey- coloured sandstone and crisp white chalk fringe the plateau, which is enhanced with lush palm groves and the still surface of five huge silver lakes.

This Garden-of-Eden appearance, though, is deceptive: the verdant palms are short and squat; they don't grow much taller, and the soil is too salty and barren for most plants except for reeds and olives. The water of the lake is too salty for fish.

This is a nice article. Don't know about the "northern European" angle, that seems a bit. . .errrr. . .inventive. But still, a good read.

Archaeologist works to save Maya legacy from ruin

Deep in the Guatemalan jungle, the battle spirits of an ancient world are reawakening.

Fourteen centuries ago, Maya kings fought for control of Waka, a city on a crucial river route westward out of Maya country. Today the city is the epicenter of a different kind of battle - to preserve some of Central America's last intact rain forest and its treasures.

Chief among the modern warriors is Dallas archaeologist David Freidel, a Maya specialist at Southern Methodist University. Working with Guatemalan colleagues, Freidel has begun the first modern survey of Waka's majestic ruined temples and palaces.

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.
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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.