Recently the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities has shared it’s worries about the future of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings with the world. Now they share more details on the planned solutions: ventilation systems, special lighting and… well, we expected a replica of KV62, but we’re getting an entire new Valley of the Kings on the cliff side of the real one. Daily thousands of tourists visit the tombs of King Tut, Seti I, Ramses, Horemeb (recently re-opened) and Queen Nefertari. All well, were it not that the quantity of humidity and fungus generated through breath and…
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In 1972, the U.S. signed the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, which banned the “development, production and stockpiling of microbes or their poisonous products except in amounts necessary for protective and peaceful research.” By 1996, 137 countries had signed the treaty. But was this this the first attempt at establishing rules for ‘humane warfare’? No, antiquity beat us to it, although they – also – often did not adhere to their own rules. The Brahmanic Laws of Manu, a Hindu treatise on statecraft dating back to the 5th Century BC, forbids the use of arrows tipped with fire or poison,…
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An important Viking hoard of jewels and coins unearthed in England by a father-and-son team of treasure hunters in 2007 has been acquired by the British Museum and the Yorkshire Museum in York. It will go on display next month. The Vale of York hoard – previously known as the Harrogate hoard – is valued at 1.1 million pounds ($1.8 million) and is at least 1,000 years old. It includes objects from Afghanistan, Ireland, Russia and Scandinavia, underlining the global spread of cultural contacts during medieval times. The York Museums Trust in York, northern England, and the British Museum in…
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Virtual reconstructions is all the new rage – just look at us! – but Antonio and Joseba Becerro Martinez laid their first virtual bricks (or meshes) as early as 2006. By now they have created a high-quality reconstruction of the entire Acropolis. The most remarkable fact though, is that they did this using only OpenSource software and that Antonia and Joseba share their work with the rest of the world under a Creative Commons license, basically allowing you to copy, distribute, commercialize and to even make derived works under the condition you give them their – deserved! – attribution. Attribution…
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The Antikythera Mechanism is one of the most debated – execpt perhaps the Elgin Marbles – Greek artefacts. Where the frieze of the Parthenon leaves us with mainly one single question, ‘Who does it belong to?’, this no-doubt ingenious ancient device raises a myriad questions like, ‘When and by whom was it created?’; What purpose did it serve?’; ‘How did it look in its entirety?’ and, ‘What was it doing on board of the Antikythera Wreck?’ Scholars around the world are working hard to resolve these issues, and every year new answers surface. One thing all the scholars agree on,…
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When the British Museum is explaining why they should not return the Elgin Marbles – and how they acquired them in the first place – they often offer two old letters as proof of their entitlement on the Parthenon Friezes: a copy of letter written by Philip Hunt talking about the ‘Firman’, a letter of permission, as well as a translation of the Firman in Italian dating to 1801. But was ‘feel free to ship half the Parthenon to Britain’ really what the Ottoman Firman said? In a recent statement Neil McGregor, director of the British Museum, said on the…
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To be released in October 2009, the Hollywood-made film Agora – set in Alexandria, Egypt, 391 AD, directed by Alejandro Amenbar and starring Rachel Weisz – about the life and death of the Greek scholar Hypatia of Alexandria should be next in the long line of ‘historically correct’ blockbusters that succeed at capturing the attention of a wide audience. The film contains everything it needs – pretty heroine (including love story with Davus) gets killed over science vs. religion conflict and thus becomes a martyr – to appeal to a large crowd and to generate a huge amount of ticket…
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Last year’s excavation already provided clear evidence that Brading was an important Roman site before the villa and its mosaics were built, something that is now – yet again, there was already the sheer size of the North Building – confirmed by the find of a full Roman bath suite – complete with hot baths and a cold plunge pool. The 2009 Big Dig at the Brading Roman Villa on the Isle of Wight – not to be confused with the London Big Dig, which aims at ‘starting archaeologists’ only – started on the 2nd of August, and will last…
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We know the Terracotta Warriors under many different names: the Terracotta Army, Qin’s Warriors, the Army of the First Emperor, The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, … but what if those are almost all wrong? What if the famous stone soldiers were not Emperor Qin Shihuangs guardians for the afterlife? That’s exactly what historian and architect Chen Jingyan writes in his recently published book ‘The Truth of the Terracotta Warriors’: the mastermind behind the Terracotta Warriors is Empress Xuan, not the First Emperor. Yuan Zhongyi, former director of the Museum of the Terracotta Warriors comments: “The question of the real…
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There are currently two* ‘explorer robots’ active in Egypt:the Japanese robot researching the Osiris Shaft – it got as far as it could though, and a ‘snake robot’ might be needed to explore further – and the Leeds robot taking a more thorough look at the shafts in the the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Although the ‘Leeds robot’ just began the actual investigation of the secret doors last week, Dr. Hawass revealed at his lecture that on the 31th of July the Leeds team already had a major breakthrough. But that was all information Dr. Zahi was willing to share…