The Islamic Manuscript Association's Sixth Islamic Manuscript Conference will be held at Queens' College, University of Cambridge from 8-10 July, 2010. It will be hosted by the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation, and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.
The theme of the Conference will be Central Asian Islamic manuscripts and manuscript collections.
Cambridge University is the second oldest university in England and fourth in Europe. It is ranked academically as one of the world's top five universities and as the leading university in Europe. It grow out of a group of scholars who lived in the City of Cambridge, who left the University of Oxford after an academic dispute. These Oxford scholars, who were post-graduate researchers, started Cambridge’s life as a university in 1209.
The collegiate university is also widely known for its ancient architectural structure and the renowned Cambridge University Library, the Cavendish Laboratory and the King's College Chapel.
“There is no other site like it,” states the introductory paragraph on the website of the Amarna Project – the body which, since 2005, has been responsible for excavations and research at Tell el-Amarna, the short-lived capital city of the “heretic pharaoh” Akhenaten (who may well have been King Tut's dad) in the 14th century BC. As a living site, Tell el-Amarna is perhaps unparalleled in all of Egypt in terms of scale, ready accessibility and quality of preservation.
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"It does seem to me perverse that the Bust of Nefertiti is not in Egypt. But I doubt if its return is imminent."
Field Director - Qasr Ibrim archaeological project
Dr. Pamela Rose earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge. She is Field Director for the Egypt Exploration Society’s research at Qasr Ibrim in Lower Nubia. The excavations at the site have uncovered remains going back nearly 3,000 years. The most recent find is a settlement that dates from the 'Dark Age' that started in the 11th century BC, when the Egyptian state collapsed.
The funding situation in the UK meant that the Qasr Ibrim project had to wrap up in 2008.
Presently she is working with the American Research Centre in Egypt. Her projects include excavation and analysis of the Amarna site. Amarna was a short-lived capital, built by the pharaoh Akhenaten, during the 18th dynasty.
The Book of Deer is a Latin Gospel Book from Old Deer in Aberdeenshire, which contains perhaps the earliest surviving Gaelic literature from Scotland, and may also be the oldest surviving manuscript produced in Scotland.
At present, it’s held in the library of the University of Cambridge. There has been a long-term campaign for its return to Scotland.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Fri, 10/02/2009 - 14:27
The discovery of a unique amphitheatre and other structures at Rome's ancient maritime port is putting the archaeological site of Portus on the map. For decades it's been a much over-looked site next to Fiumicino's international runway and scholarly attention has focused on neighbouring Ostia Antica, but experts now believe it is a unique site that should rank alongside monuments such as Stonehenge or Angkor Wat.
The amphitheatre has emerged at a location that excavators say is inside an 'imperial' palace complex - whose main function was port-related administration.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 12:02
Several major archaeological discoveries have been made at the site of one of Rome's ancient harbours. An oval amphitheatre, a 90m canal as well as many smaller objects (including marble statues) have emerged during excavations of Portus, the cargo port of ancient Rome, about two miles north of its better-known counterpart, Ostia Antica.
Submitted by Sean Williams on Mon, 09/07/2009 - 16:56
A century-old case may have been closed - DNA evidence appears to show Europe's first farmers were not related to their hunter-gatherer forebears. Teams from the University of Mainz, Cambridge University and University College London have been comparing the genetic make-up of central and northern European hunter-gatherers with ancient farmers and even today's central Europeans.
The 
