Category: Ann - Part 19

China’s Inner Mongolia: Han Dynasty ruins discovered and Great Wall under threat

Ruinsfrom a Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) cityhave been discovered in Wuyuan County, Hetao Plain, Chinas Inner Mongolia. Its said that the scale of the city ruins is rarely seen in Hetao Plain. In a mean while, the gold mining company is been investigated over irreparable damage done to 100 metersof theGreat Wall in their quest for the precious metal.

A new Han City discovered in Wuyuan County

Thenewly discovered city ruins are located in Taal Town of Wuyuan County, Bayannaoer City in Chinas Inner Mongolia and were once covered with grassland.

The city wall was about 2 km long and 1 km wide and is made up of compressed earth. The east wall is 2 meters high and remarkably preserved, while, the south wall has already collapsed and is now a road base 80 centimetres high above ground level. Pottery shards with exquisite patterns are scattered nearby.

People.com.cn also reports an archaeologist saying a large number of tombs including more than 300 graves were previously found 2 kilometres away from the newly-found city ruins.This may implythat there was a whole city here during theHan Dynasty, with the living area in the southern part and burial grounds in the northern part.

Mining Company digs for gold under Great Wall

The Police of Hohhot City – Inner Mongolia’s capital – and China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage are jointly investigating allegations that the Hohhot Kekao gold mining firmwhilst prospecting in Inner Mongoliaseverely damaged 100 meters of what is probably China’s most famous ancient monument.

The constructionon theGreat Wall of China started in the 5th century BC by Emperor Qin Shi Huang– better kown as the First Emperor -tostop invading northern tribes.The exact length of the part build in the Ming Dynasty8,851.8 km was announced in 2008. The Great Wall was built in different historic periods and probably the total lenght wasabout 50,000 kilometres. After research to measure the length of the Great Wall of the Qin and Han dynasties, this year another 11 kilometres was added to the ancient monument’s length when Qin and Han period ruins ofthe wall and a fort were found in Tonghua County, shifting ‘the end of the wall’ away from Xinbin. About 15,000 kilometres of the wall finds itself in Inner Mongolia.

The mining firm under investigation ignored five orders to stop operations and continued to dig the two holes in the wall, forcing the cultural relics office to take action. The holes, covering a total area of 300 square meters and five meters deep, were dug through the a Qin Dynasty part of theGreat Wall on a mountain in the city’s Pogendi Village. Wang Dafang, director of the region’s cultural relics department, told Xinhua that”The damage is irreparable.”

One-third of the Great Wall has over time been destroyed by erosion as well as ‘vandalism’; miners, road construction workers and villagers collecting building materials. Damaging the state key cultural relic site is punishable by a fine of up to 500,000 yuan or a jail term of up to 10 years, but only 5 miners have been punished up to date.

The Egyptian people have the right to see the real Rosetta Stone

Egypt threathening to severe ties with the Louvre museum led to five looted Pharaonic steles returning to Egypt and maybe even toTetiki’stomb of which they were illegally removed. But the directory general of the SCA, Dr. Zahi Hawass, is on a quest that he hopes will lead to thehigh-profile “icons of the Egyptian identity” returning to the Cairo Museum. What’s on the wishlist? First and foremore the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum and the Nefertiti Bust from the Neues. But also a statue of Hemiunu, the bust of Anchhaf, the mask of Ka-Nefer-Neferand the painted Zodiac blasted outof theceiling of the templeat Dendera, dedicated to goddessof love Hathor.

An exodus of artefacts

If those artefacts can’t be returned permanentlyDr. Hawass would at least like them back on load for the opening of Egypt’s Grand Museum at Giza, due by 2013. Neither the British Museum, nor the Neuesseem inclined to give us these priceless items that draw thousands of tourists every year. The BBCreports the British Museum stating:”A loan request regarding the Rosetta Stone was received and acknowledged. The request currently stands as a matter for further consideration in due course.” One can partly understand their rather chilly reactions to such requests, because if they return one artefact, where will it end? Just imagine the exodus of ancient objects from the museumsonce Greece, Rome, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Mexico, Peru, Benin, Chinaand Scotland all call for the return oftheir cultural patrimony.

But Dr. Hawass states the British Museum need not worry, at least not where Egypt is concerned: “I’m not asking for all the artefacts of the British Museum to come to Egypt.””I’m only asking for the unique cultural objects,” he added, referring to items of great archaeological value, such as the Rosetta Stone.

Repatriation of a Parthenon Frieze from the British Museum - Fantasy Work

It was once thought that when the New Acropolis Museum opened, the Parthenon Friezes would be returned from the British Museum toAthens. One could say the Elgin Marbles were ‘legally looted’, as they were sold when Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and it’s not even sure if that deal actually allowed Elgin to chip off the friezes from the Parthenon.

Outreach or local reach

But surely, isn’t it better to have the Rosetta Stone in London, which gives more people the opportunity to marvel at it than if it were in theEgyptian Museum atCairo? Isn’t it great to have one spot whichyou can visit to taste and learn about Roman, Assyrian, Aboriginal and Egyptian culture? This used to be one of the arguments Icould not counter. Certainly, it would be even better to learn about those cultures ‘in situ’, but not everybody can afford a yearly vacation to another continent. So Nefertitiand the Rosetta Stone reach out to people. That’s a noble cause, andone that couldjustify their forced exile?

Wafaa al-Saddiq, the director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo doesnot think the ‘outreach effect’ is enough:”I have very mixed and difficult feelings when I go to a museum overseas and see all these wonderful items taken from Egypt. The objects are giving a good example of Egyptian civilisation to people in different countries so that they then come here to see the Pyramids and tombs,”she told the BBC. “At the same time, I always say the Egyptian people also have the right to see these unique objects, some of which were taken when Egypt was under occupation, so my first wish is that they come back,” she adds.

And Wafaa al-Saddiq definitely has a point there. The average wages in Berlin and London are higher than those in Egypt or Benin, so visiting Nefertiti at the Neues or flying to Paris to see the DenderaZodiac- which I could easily afford if I’d quit smoking – means a massive financial sacrifice for the very people who’s heritage these museums hold. Which just does not seem just. So maybe Nefertiti should be given the chance to reach out to her ‘own people’ first?

Getty Conservation Institute to rid King Tut’s Tomb of ‘brown spots’

Close-up of wall painting in King Tut's Tomb showing the 'brown spots'. When visiting King Tutankhamun’s tomb – or its virtual counterpart King Tut Virtual – did you ever notice the strange brown spotson the wall paintings? They definitely were ~~not~~ there when Howard Carter discovered KV62 in 1922, and nobody knows what is causing them, not even Dr. Zahi Hawass: “I always see the tomb of King Tut and wonder about those spots, which no scientist has been able to explain.” Now the Getty Conservation Institute – specialised in conservation techniques for art and inparticular forancient sites – in cooperation with the SCA will start a five-year conservation project to determine what is causing this damage to the ancient wall paintings.

The Getty Conservation Institute has a longstanding history in Egypt; they were part of the international team working on the conservation of the wall paintings in the tomb of Queen Nefertari, supplied oxygen-free display and storage cases for the royal mummies in the Egyptian Museum and and were involved in the site-management plan for the Valley of the Queens.

“Now I am happy that the Getty will look at the tomb and preserve its beautiful scenes. King Tut has magic that we must conserve for future generations,” Dr. Hawass stated.During these five years the GCIwill be ‘looking at the tomb’, they plan todiscover the cause of the ‘brown stains’ after which they will restore and cleanthe walls of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’stomb.It’s not yet known for how long Tut’s tomb will be closed – although with recent reports about a ‘replica Valley of the Kings’, one would dare guess that this could be a verylong time – but it is thought the GCIwill need at least two years to research the causes of deterioration. The restoration period is estimated to be three years. But don’t worry, we’ll keep King Tut Virtual includingthe virtual reconstructionKV62’s walls – including paintings, of course -open for you to visit (and zoom in on the brown spots) in the mean while! 😉

Reclaiming King Arthur – The Legend in the (Welsh) Landscape

The Legend in the Landscape - Still from Reclaiming King Arthur ‘Reclaiming King Arthur’ -avideo produced by the University of Wales, Newport, aims to bring to life the legend of King Arthur, by examining historic evidence and the literary tradition which points to Gwent as the home of this famous character as well as to introduce an international audience to the history of this South Wales site.In thevideo – available for all to see on the University’s Instititue of Digital Learning website -Dr Ray Howell examines the relevance of King Arthur as most widely known through legend, myth, historical evidence, literature and the literary tradition which include explanation of how Caerleon in Newport can stake its claim to Arthurs round table, following 200 years of Roman occupation and how the legend has inspired writers throughout the centuries since… .

The Legend in the Landscape is filmed on location around Gwent, home to all of the University of Wales, Newports campuses where Dr Ray Howell leads the audience on a trail through the landscape exploring iron-age hill forts, beautiful views from the top of Skenfrith mountain, Roman occupation, the warriors Silures fighting back, gladiatorial battle in Caerleons Roman amphitheatre, through to the riverside public house in Caerleon, which once inspired poet Alfred Lord Tennyson to write hisIdylls of the King- and shows that there is evidence of two* different Arthursat Wales – one, an early medieval war lord, the other Arthur of Camelot and the roundtable, so often depicted though the arts.

Reclaiming King Arthur, the Legend in the Landscape is a project from the University of Wales, Newport Personally, I so much prefer the historical Arthur andIron Age hillforts to the romantic literary King Arthur, and thus also the first part of the ‘Reclaiming King Arthur’video.A great approach to ‘bringing Iron Age ditches back to live in your imagination’- is the simple but very effective two screen setup of the video; one screen shows Dr. Ray Howellguiding us throughthehistorical sitesasthe Lodge Hill Hillfort and the Amphitheatre at Caerleon (King Arthur’s round table and court?) as they are now, whilst in the second screen you get a clear idea of how the place must have looked like in ancient times by the use of maps, plans and illustrations. I wonder if they’d mind if we would borrow that idea… .

‘Reclaiming King Arthur’ is the second in a series of online videos by the Institute of Digital Learning, the first about the history ofthenew City Campus’ river site– which started as early as the Mesolithic, 6000 years-ago – starring Dr. Howell as well. “By creating this series of videos, we are using new media as part of the study experience of students on the BA (Hons) History programme at Newport,”saysDr Howell. “This brings so much more to the learning by showing history in situ.”

If you haven’t done so already, go watch ‘Reclaiming King Arthur’ at the Institue’s website!I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. In the mean while, we’ll try to convince Dr. Howell to tell us some more about the history of Gwent,Caerleon and – of course – King Arthur.

* This count does not include the famous’modern King Arthur’associated with Stonehenge, Druids and protests: King Arthur Pendragon. At the timethis blogpost is written, we have no information if King Arthur Pendragon has ever visited or resided in the Newport area. 😉

Treasures Hidden in the Cairo Museum’s Basement

It is not only at excavation sites that amazing artefacts can be discovered, but the archives of previous digs as well as the artefacts already in museums can still surprise us. Or what about the basement of the Cairo museum? Thousands of pieces, hidden away from both scholars and public. At least for now. Plans are under way to do a thorough ‘clean up’of the gigantic basement and who knows what will come to light when all items are eventually moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum?

In the mean while, Dr. Zahi Hawass tells us about how a recent ‘re-discovery’ of the storage boxes of the Kom Abu Billu excavation by Sabah Abed el Razek revealed his first – archaeology – love:a statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love, known as Hathor to the ancient Egyptians.

This isn’t the first artefact to re-surface, sometimes literally. Renovation works in the western area of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, Cairo has more recently brought to light a new archaeological cachette. The find included nine artefacts, among them an offering table, the upper part of a limestone stela, stones bearing hieroglyphs, and an engraved Ramesside limestone column base, with a cobra found next to it.

Video: Dr. Hawass reacquainted with First Love in Cairo Museum Basement

(Transcription of this video.)

I found my love archaeology.

Dr. Hawass then told the press that two cachettes had previously been found in the Egyptian Museums garden; before 1952, archaeologists used to bury artefacts of questionable authenticity there, but only after they had been recorded in the museums register books and scientifically published. No records, however, had yet been found concerning this latest cachette.

And the renovation works at the museum – it’s becoming a real trend – continue: in the basement there are big plans for lecture and study halls as well as a temporary exhibition hall. And of course, the new exit – at the western side, where the cachette was found – visitors will be able to find a large book store, a cafeteria and other facilities.

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Modern Imaging Tools to Capture Ancient Aramaic Tablets

Tablet Persepolis Iran Aramaic The West Semitic Research Project in cooperation with the Oriental Institute are producing very high-quality electronic images of nearly 700 Aramaic administrative documents discovered in Iran. These clay tablets – in which the Aramaic texts were incised in the surface with styluses or inked on the tablets with brushes or pen – form one of the largest groups of ancient Aramaic records ever found.

They are part of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, an immense group of administrative documents written and compiled about 500 B.C. at Persepolis, one of the capitals of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Archaeologists from the Oriental Institute discovered the archive in 1933, and the Iranian government has loaned it to the Oriental Institute since 1936 for preservation, study, analysis and publication.

The Persepolis texts have started to provide scholars with new knowledge about Imperial Aramaic, the dialect used for international communication and record-keeping in many parts of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires, including parts of the administration at the imperial court of Persepolis. These texts have an even greater value because they are so closely connected with documents written in other ancient languages by the same administration at Persepolis.

No serious treatment of the empire that Cyrus and Darius built and that Alexander destroyed can ignore the perspectives of the Fortification Archive.

“We don’t have many archives of this size. A lot of what’s in these texts is entirely fresh, but this also changes what we already knew,” said Annalisa Azzoni, a specialist on ancient Aramaic and now working with the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project at the Oriental Institute. “There are words I know were used in later dialects, for example, but I didn’t know they were used at this time or this place, Persia in 500 BC. For an Aramaicist, this is quite an important discovery.”

Clearer images delivered more quickly

Scholars from the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California helped the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project build and install an advanced electronic imaging laboratory at the Oriental Institute. Together, the two projects are making high-quality images of the Aramaic texts and the seal impressions associated with those texts. They are distributing the new images to the international research community through the Internet.

Inked and incised texts pose different problems that call for different imaging solutions. Making high-resolution scans under polarized and filtered light reveals the ink without interference from stains and glare, and sometimes shows faded characters that cannot be seen in ordinary daylight. Using another advanced imaging technique, called Polynomial Texture Mapping, researchers are able to see surface variations under variable lighting, revealing the marks of styluses and even the traces of pens in places where the ink itself has disappeared.

Video:Bringing Persepolis Tablets to Light

Distributing the results online will give worldwide communities of philologists and epigraphers images that are almost as good as the original objects – and in some cases actually clearer than the originals – to study everything from vocabulary and grammar to the handwriting habits of individual ancient scribes.

Technicalities to seeing the whole picture

The Polynomial Texture Mapping apparatus looks a bit like a small astronomical observatory, with a cylindrical based topped by a hemispherical dome. The camera takes a set of 32 pictures of each side of the tablet, with each shot lit with a different combination of 32 lights set in the dome.

After post-processing, the PTM software application knits these images to allow a viewer sitting at a computer to manipulate the apparent direction, angle and intensity of the light on the object, and to introduce various effects to help with visualization of the surface.

“This means that the scholar isn’t completely dependent on the photographer for what he sees anymore,” said Bruce Zuckerman, Director of the West Semitic Research Project and its online presence, InscriptiFact. “The scholar can pull up an image on the screen and relight an object exactly as he wants to see it. He can look at different parts of the image with different lighting, to cast light and shadow across even the faintest, shallowest marks of a stylus or pen on the surface, and across every detail of a seal impression.”

“This is a wonderful way to look at seal impressions,” said Elspeth Dusinberre, another Persepolis Fortification Project collaborator. Dusinberre, an associate professor of classics at the University of Colorado, is studying the imagery and the use of seals impressed on the Aramaic tablets. “Some of the impressions are faint, or incomplete, on curved surfaces or damaged surfaces. Sometimes Aramaic text is written across them. You need to be able to move the light around to highlight every detail, to see the whole picture.”

The Persepolis Fortification Archive also includes about 10,000 to 12,000 other tablets and fragments with cuneiform texts in Elamite – a few hundred of them with short secondary texts in Aramaic. There are also about 4,000 to 5,000 others with impressions of seals, but no texts, and there are a few unique documents in other languages and scripts, including Greek, Old Persian and Phrygian.

“That’s what makes this group of Aramaic texts so extraordinary,” Stolper said. “From one segment of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the Elamite texts, we know a lot about conditions around Persepolis at about 500 B.C. When we can add a second stream of information, the Aramaic texts, we’ll be able to see things in a whole new light. They add a new dimension of the ancient reality.”

Impacts are far-reaching

To date, the teams have made high-quality images of almost all the monolingual Aramaic Fortification tablets. The next phase of the work will make images of the short Aramaic notes written on cuneiform tablets, seal impressions on uninscribed tablets and previously unrecorded Elamite cuneiform texts.

The tablets have been studied since they came to Chicago in 1936, and many of them have been sent back to Iran. Oriental Institute scholar Richard T. Hallock published about 2,100 of the Elamite texts in 1969, and Margaret Cool Root and Persepolis Fortification Archive Project collaborator Mark Garrison are completing a three-volume publication of the impressions made on those documents by about 1,500 distinct seals.

These publications have had far-reaching results. “They have transformed every aspect of modern study of the languages, history, society, institutions, art and religion of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” Stolper said. “No serious treatment of the empire that Cyrus and Darius built and that Alexander destroyed can ignore the perspectives of the Fortification Archive.”

“If that is the effect of a sample of one component of the archive,” added Garrison, “imagine what will happen when we can have larger samples and other components, and not just the written record, but the imagery, the impressions made by thousands of different seals that administrators and travelersthe men and women who figure in the textsemployed.”

By 2010, the collaborating teams expect to have high-quality images of 5,000 to 6,000 Persepolis tablets and fragments, and to supplement these with conventional digital images of another 7,000 to 8,000 tablets and fragments. The images will be distributed online as they are processed, along with cataloging and editorial information.

“Thanks to electronic media, we don’t have to cut the parts of the archive up and distribute the pieces among academic specialties,” said Stolper. “We can combine the work of specialists in a way that lets us see the archive as it really was, in its original complexity, as one big thing with many distinct parts.”

Renovation Fiasco at Tiwanaku? Akapana Pyramid in Danger of Collapse

In a bid to bring more tourists to the town of Tiwanaku – some 64km north of Bolivia’s capital La Paz – the Bolivian Andes town put at risk it’s UNWorld Heritage Site status, and even put their Akapana Pyramid in the danger of collapse. They restored their pyramid with adobe – a clay mixture – instead of stone in what some experts are calling a renovation fiasco.

Jose Luis Paz, appointed to assess the damage at the heritage site, told CourierMail the that the state National Archaeology Union erred in choosing to rebuild the pyramid using adobe, when it was clear to the naked eye that the original was built of stone. “They decided to go freehand with the (new) design,” he said. “There are no studies showing that the walls really looked like this.”

The Akapana pyramid is one of the biggest pre-Columbian builds in South America and Tiwanaku itself was the spiritual and political centre of the Tiwanaku culture. The Tiwanaku civilisation, which flourished around Lake Titicaca, was one of the precursors of the Inca empire, the largest pre-Columbian civilisation in the Americas. According to recent estimates at its high days the Tiwanaku community might have had a population count of anywhere between 285,000 and 1,482,000 people.

The looting of the Akapana pyramid’s carved stones and ceramics started soon after the Spanish conquest and the structure was later used as a quarry, from which stones were extracted to build a rail line and a Catholic church nearby. Its sheer size and the still-standing lower decks suggest that the ‘Piramide Akapana’ was once a remarkable building, but as a result of the ransacking and the extreme temperatures and strong winds in the Andean plateau, some 3800m above sea level, the pyramid looks run down. New research shows that this pyramid was never quite finished in antiquity. One Spanish chronicler said of Tiwanaku, “They build their monuments as if their intent was never to finish them.”

This is not only about aesthetics. Mr. Paz adds that the lower decks of the pyramid are slightly tilted because of the extra weight of the adobe walls, which could just as well lead to an entire collapse of the pyramid.

According to Mr Paz the town of Tiwanaku hired the UNAR to renovate Akapana to make it “more attractive for tourists”, regardless of how the pyramid may have originally looked. As thousands of tourists visit Tiwanaku every year for an access fee of $10, a better-looking pyramid which attracts more visitors would mean serious financial gain for the village of Tiwanaku which manages the heritage site. Yet the reconstruction project was halted earlier this year, after a warning from UNESCO to the government.

Pablo Groux – Culture Minister – dismisses the criticism and tells the CourierMail that the UNARjust restored the original form the pyarmid had, in a renovation that was long called for. According to him, what we see now is close to what the construction originally looked like.

Tiwanaku was added to the World Heritage List in 2000 thanks to its ruins bearing “a striking witness to the power of the empire that played a leading role in the development of the Andean pre-Hispanic civilisation”. But if the Akapana pyramid has been to much tampered, UNESCOmight just as well decide to remove it from its list.

Tiwanaku should consider applying for the World Monuments Watch List, which keeps track of cultural heritage considered to be at risk.

Fracture Zones and Groundwater Endanger Tombs in Valley of Kings

$Drawing of fracture traces, lineaments and zones of fracture concentrations in the area of tombs in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. - Image credit Richard Parizek, Penn State$ Ancient choices made by Egyptians digging burial tombs may have led to today’s problems with damage and curation of these precious archaeological treasures, but photography and detailed geological mapping should help curators protect the sites, according to a Penn State researcher.

“Previously, I noticed that some tomb entrances in the Valley of Kings, Luxor, Egypt, were aligned on fracture traces and their zones of fracture concentration,” said Katarin A. Parizek, instructor in digital photography, department of integrative arts. “From my observations, it seems that tomb builders may have intentionally exploited these avenues of less resistant limestone when creating tombs.”

Fracture traces are the above-ground indication of underlying zones of rock fracture concentrations. They can be between 5 and 40 feet wide, but average about 20 feet and can be as long as a mile. Lineaments are similar geological features that exceed one mile in length. Geologists suggest that fracture traces are good locations for drilling water wells and probably the highly fractured rock made it easier for the Egyptians to dig tombs.

Archaeologists try very hard to mitigate flooding in the tombs, but it becomes even harder if there are tombs flooding that no one knows about.

Working with Richard R. Parizek, professor of geology and geoenvironmental engineering, Parizek has now looked at 33 of the 63 known tombs in the Valley of Kings. She reported her results yesterday at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland:

“We have now documented nine tombs in detail, photographing and mapping the entire tombs inside and out, and preliminary observations have been made in another nine, which still have to be mapped in detail,” said Parizek. “We have recorded 14 more tombs through field observations, but still need to map and photograph these as well.”

Of the 63 tombs in the Valley of the Kings, so far 30 have been identified by Parizek as lying on fracture traces, two lie diagonal to a trace and one is completely off of this type of geological structure.

The importance of these geological features is not just that they allow easier tomb creation, but the fracture traces are natural entry points for water, which sometimes damage tombs. “We have seen evidence of seven separate flood events in four tombs so far,” said Parizek.

“Archaeologists try very hard to mitigate flooding in the tombs, but it becomes even harder if there are tombs flooding that no one knows about,” says Parizek.

Detail of the ceiling of King Tut Tomb KV62 - Photo credit Katarin Parizek, Penn State When it does rain in the area, water enters the fracture traces and runs through the zones of fracture. Because so many of the tombs are located on the traces, the water runs into the tombs destroying wall and ceiling paintings and causing the tomb surfaces to spall or flake off. Even if archaeological curators divert water away from the entrances of known tombs, they may be directing the water to currently undiscovered tombs and flooding them.

The geological information the team has been gathering is now allowing archaeologists to plan better ways to stop the flooding of both known and unknown tombs by diverting the water away from traces and exposed entrances.

Parizek also notes that archaeologists are using this geological information along with archaeological clues to explore for new tombs and other archaeological sites in the Valley of Kings. In February 2006, KV63 was discovered by professor Otto Schaden.

“This tomb is localized along master joints immediately adjacent to a zone of fracture concentration that we mapped in 2002,” said Parizek. This discovery supplied evidence the Parizeks’ original hypothesis that tombs were dug on fracture traces and into fracture zones is correct.

Detail of Ceiling KV6 - Photo credit Katarin Parizek, Penn State For the last two years, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and a renowned Egyptian archaeologist, has been leading an extensive exploration effort within the Valley of Kings. “He is using our geological information along with archaeological clues to guide excavations,” said Parizek.

The researchers hope to investigate and map the geology of more tombs in the future and to combine the photographs and maps to create 3-D images of the tombs.

It is not only groundwater that threatens the ancient tombs. The humidity and fungus generated by tourists breath and sweat is damaging the soft stone and paintings and carvings thousands years old. Closing Tutankhamun, Nefertari and Seti I’s tombs were the first step in the SCA’s new plan to protect the Valley of the Kings. Other tombs get added protection such as a cool lighting system to spread the number of visits over the course of the day. Eventually an entire ‘Replica Valley (of the Kings)’ for the tourists will be installed on the cliff side of the real Valley.

Fantastic Images of the Nefertiti Bust at the Neues Museum Berlin

The Nefertiti’s Bust – attributed to the sculptor Thutmose from whom’s workshop it was recovered in 1912 – is world famous. Thutmose must have been one lucky sculptor, being asked to capture for eternity the ravishing face of the Queen who’s ancient name meant A Beautiful Woman Has Come. The Queen Nefertiti – wife of Akhenaten and known in Germany as Nofretete – Bust is an icon of the Amarna period art and one of the most valuable items in the collection of the gyptisches Museum Berlin (to much frustration of the Egypt, which demands its return). She first went on display in the Neues Museum in 1924, but was evacuated when World War II bomb damage ruined most of the building. Now the royal bust has finally returned to the Neues Museum. We’ve got some fantastic images of the carefully organized move of the Nefertiti bust and her prime position in Nefertiti Dome gallery (room 210):

This weekend the Ancient Beauty will be the major draw for Berliners who are expected to flock to the public opening. The Neues Museum will be free for visitors on Saturday and Sunday. Organizers are braced for a mass turnout, providing hot drinks for the thousands expected to stand in line, despite the forecast of rain. (We’re kinda happy Heritage Key already got the Grand Tour yesterday!)

France does the Right Thing & Gets to Dig at Saqqara Again.

Fragment of TT15 - Tetiky's Tomb - that ended up in the Louvre Collection. It doesn’t happen all that often that the battle over ‘mere tomb paintings’ makes headline news – why would they, when they have the highly debated return of the Elgin Marbles to the Acropolis Museum to write about? But the whole world was shocked last week, when Dr. Zahi Hawass accused France’s most famous museum of theft. Or at least, of purchasing looted artefacts and then refusing to return them to Egypt. Dr. Hawass hit back by refusing to let the Louvre’s Saqqara team dig in Egypt.

The Louvre stated that it was forced to wait for permission to return the artefacts. But now the committee has advised that the fragments from Tetiki’s tomb are to be returned – President Sarkozy has even phoned President Mubarak to ensure they’ll be shipped to Egypt in six days’ time. Dr. Hawass says: “When the objects return I will be very happy to renew our archaeological relationship with the Louvre and allow them to excavate again at Saqqara.”

As soon as the fragements arrrive in Egypt, possibilities to reinstate them in their proper position on the walls of TT15 will be looked into. If that’s impossible, they will get a prime position in the planned Grand Egyptian Museum.

Stolen Artefacts Still Abroad

The wall paintings of tomb TT15 in the Louvre are not the only artefacts whose return Egypt demands. They want to see the the mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer repatriated from the Saint Louis Art Museum in the United States, and artefacts from the UK’s Ashmolean Museum and the Royal Museum of Fine Art in Brussels.

Dr. Hawass warns these organisations will see their excavations suspended as well: “Any museum that buys stolen artifacts will receive this same treatment.I was forced to cut archaeological ties with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Saint Louis Art Museum because they would not return artifacts, even after the SCA presented evidence they had been stolen.”

“I hope this story will be a warning to everyone not to deal in stolen antiquities.”

He adds that loss of cultural property is not the only risk, but that looters also damage the items that remain as well, by taking the artefacts out of their context. “When robbers enter the tombs and cut pieces out of the walls and take the objects, they are not just damaging the beauty of the tombs, they are damaging history,” adds Dr Hawass. “I hope this story will be a warning to everyone, all museums and archaeologists, Egyptians and foreigners, not to deal in stolen antiquities.”

Why does Dr. Zahi Hawass keep saying ‘stolen’. Isn’t this a case of ‘finders, keepers, sellers’?

Not according to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. When we say artefacts are in a museum ‘illegaly’, the museum authorities likely broke Article 7 of the internationally ratified treaty:

The States Parties to this Convention undertake:

(a) To take the necessary measures, consistent with national legislation, to prevent museums and similar institutions within their territories from acquiring cultural property originating in another State Party which has been illegally exported after entry into force of this Convention, in the States concerned. Whenever possible, to inform a State of origin Party to this Convention of an offer of such cultural property illegally removed from that State after the entry into force of this Convention in both States;

(b) (i) to prohibit the import of cultural property stolen from a museum or a religious or secular public monument or similar institution in another State Party to this Convention after the entry into force of this Convention for the States concerned, provided that such property is documented as appertaining to the inventory of that institution;

(ii) at the request of the State Party of origin, to take appropriate steps to recover and return any such cultural property imported after the entry into force of this Convention in both States concerned, provided, however, that the requesting State shall pay just compensation to an innocent purchaser or to a person who has valid title to that property. Requests for recovery and return shall be made through diplomatic offices. The requesting Party shall furnish, at its expense, the documentation and other evidence necessary to establish its claim for recovery and return. The Parties shall impose no customs duties or other charges upon cultural property returned pursuant to this Article. All expenses incident to the return and delivery of the cultural property shall be borne by the requesting Party.

Article 7, Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 1970