A blog by Bija Knowles got me thinking about travel to ancient destinations. In particular, Bija talks about Libya and its move towards promoting itself more as a tourist destination. Libya has long been one of the Holy Grails of travel writing because it’s been so difficult to get into…
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East London Lives Exhibition Touring the Capital
No doubt plenty of our London-based readers have been getting hot under the collar over the past few years, as the East London line tube extension bumbles its way towards completion before the 2012 Olympics. Yet amongst the plumes of grime and grinding dirge of diggers, archaeologists have been burrowing…
Daily Flickr Finds: Sean Molin’s Stonehenge
Today’s Flickr Find comes from talented photographer Sean Molin, who beautifully depicts the iconic Stonehenge and portrays it in a dramatic and atmospheric shot. The use of the sepia tint takes away the colour of the shot, leaving the viewer to pay close attention to the great detail in the…
‘Egyptological Colloquium could have been Better’
This year’s Egyptological Colloquium was roundly regarded as a success, as eighteen top Egyptological minds converged on London’s British Museum for two intense days of lectures, opinions and debate on the Book of the Dead. One of the most stunning pieces of Egyptian liturgy, yet a much maligned forum for…
Did Hunter Gatherers Produce Pottery? You bet!
Its an idea that has become conventional thinking. Pottery is a child of agriculture. There is no advantage for a society to produce ceramic technology unless it is at least partly agricultural. Hunter gatherers, who move around the landscape, wont produce it in any quantity because it is simply too…
Multinational to be Prosecuted for Allegedly Destroying Rock Art
The fight to save ancient treasures goes on. There are the bigger battles, the ones to save important heritage sites from war-time destruction see Kashgar, Iran and Iraq. There are the battles against neglect, as in the case of Libya. Then there are the battles against the downright stupid. The…
Coastal Erosion Near Rome Uncovers Prehistoric Warrior
After almost 5,000 years of peace and quiet, a warrior thought to date from the eneolithic age has been roused from his sleep. The discovery was made in May this year, after a winter of high tides and storms led to coastal erosion in the area of Nettuno, near Anzio,…
The Original Venice: Pictures Show Roman Town Beneath Venetian Cornfields
Scientists from the University of Padua have, for the first time, been able to decipher the streets and buildings of a lost Roman town called Altinum, just north of Venice. They did this by flying over the site near the modern-day village of Altino, which is today no more than…
Daily Flickr Finds: johnmartine63’s Scene from The Egyptian “Book of the Dead”
The “Book of the Dead” isn’t as daunting as some horror cinema flick may make it sound to be. In fact, it was a series of spells, pleas and stories which were written and compiled as a guide for the deceased to navigate across the underworld to reach paradise. johnmartine63‘s…
The British Museum on Pigments and Fading in the Book of the Dead
The Egyptological Colloquium 2009, held on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, saw a glut of eager experts propose dozens of theories on the making, scribing and significance of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Some were more in-depth than others; some were downright inaccessible to all but the longest-serving…