After 4 years of research – at a quite ‘sensitive’ and not-so-safe area, Imust admit – UNESCOfinally released it’s Final Report on Damage Assesment in Babylon by the International Coordination Committee for the Saveguarding of the Cultural Heritage of Iraq. Be the report not that world-shocking, we all know by now that both Saddam Hussein as well as the Coalition Forces are to blame, the report does clearly devide which damage was inflicted upon the Babylon archaeological area before the start of the Iraq war, and which was brought upon ‘Camp Alpha’ post-2003. Damage to the archaeological site that occurred…
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From ‘Mummy CSI‘, we jump to ‘CSIAncient Greece’. At least, according to the NewScientist. There Ewen Callaway reports on how Stephen Tracy – Greek scholar and epigrapher – makes good use of human intelligence and machine’s computing power to attribute 24 ancient Greek inscriptions to their individual masons. Together with Michail Panagopoulos and Constantin Papaodysseus – both computer scientists at the National Technical University of Athens – they succeeded at attributing the chisel marks to six different cutters, between the years 334BCand 134BC. How? Panagopoulos’ team determined what different cutters meant each letter to look like by overlaying digital scans…
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Not even a month after 4 brave mummies left the Brooklyn Museum to have themselves scanned, and ‘Lady Hor’ proved to be a male mummy – “scrotum and penis pretty well preserved”, another round of mummy CSIuncovered yet another case of ‘transgender’ behaviour amongst mummies. The Birmingham Museum took three mummies to the Stafford Hospital in a bid to understand how these ancient Egyptians, whose bodied were later mummified, died. One of the mummies, from the Namenkhetamun of the 26th Dynasty (664-525BC), was described as ‘the daughter of Amunkhau’ on the coffin lid. But the scan has revealed the mummy…
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Ancient wall paintings were discovered in northern China in a 1,400-year-old royal tomb found during the construction of one of the country’s largest infrastructure projects, a national water transport system. The detailed frescoes found in the tomb in Cixian county in Beijing’s neighbouring Hebei province depict honour guard officials from the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577), the report said. The tomb itself had belonged to Gao Xiaoxu, the male heir of an emperor in the Qi, archaeologists told the agency. The intricate images, painted on the walls of a 15-meters long passage, will prove useful in the study of the escort…
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Last week the Brooklyn Museum took four of their ancient Egyptian mummies to the North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, as they were in dying need of a CT-scan. Pure Archaeology 2.0, not only because of the use of modern technology, but because the museum staff used ‘the web 2.0’ to document their trip and the scanning of the mummies as it was happening on Twitter – #mummyCT – and Flickr. Over at pyramidofman.com there’s an elaborate report on the mummies’ journey, but here are some of the highlights of this episode of CSI: Mummy: Mummy ‘Lady Hor’ is…
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The Wiltshire police has announced there will be a large police presence at Stonehenge for this year’s Summer Solstice. Because the celebrations fall over the weekend and fine weather is predicted, bigger crowds than usual are expected and Wiltshire police have said they will clamp down heavily on antisocial behaviour. The police operation will involve an unmanned drone and horses. Also drugs sniffer dogs will be launched at Stonehenge tomorrow as huge crowds descend on the ancient site for the summer solstice. The Guardian reported on visitors of the Stonehenge fearing a repeat of the escalations at the recent G20…
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Desperate to figure out before the Summer Solstice 2009 what Stonehenge is all about, but you can’t decide which theory – sacrifices, calendar, discotheque, burial site, religious temple, neolithic art – to go with? Don’t panic!Worth1000.com‘s finest Photoshop artists present us with a few alternative – but very plausible – theories about the iconic stone circle’s construction, use, location and present state. Which of the options below do you deem to be most likely? Take the poll, let us know! Option 1: One Giant’s Game is Man’s Neolithic Monument Most scientists claim humans started piling up earth, wood and rocks…
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An archaeological excavation in Jerusalem has revealed an ancient aqueduct that brought water to the Sultan’s Pool – a Herodian Reservoir that gets its name from Suleiman the Magnificent, who restored the site in the 16th century – and to the Temple Mount, supplying clean water to the city’s residents and visiting pilgrims for drinking and purification. Most Jerusalemites identify the Sultan’s Pool as a venue where large cultural events are held; however, from the Roman period until the late Ottoman period it was one of the citys most important water reservoirs. The excavation, directed by Gideon Solimany and Dr.…
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Three new ancient egyptian tombs dating back almost 3500 years have been discovered near Luxor by an archaeological mission lead by Dr. Zahi Hawass. One of the newly discovered tombs belonged to Amun-Em-Opet, Supervisor of Hunters and dates back to shortly before King Akhenaten’s reign. Entrances to 2 undecorated tombs have been found to the north-west of Amun-Em-Opet’s. The newly discovered were unearthed at the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Naga, on Luxor’s west bank. Amongst the items discovered in the 3 tombs: seven funerary seals bearing the name Amenhotep-Ben-Neferm, Supervisor of the Cattle of Amun. seals bearing the name of…
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They claim the crisis affects us all, but did it influence the funding of archaeological excavations, conservation and research? The BBCreports it does, stating the consequences will be felt as far as property development: “The job losses in archaeology could threaten the start of recovery for the building industry as any site with historic significance has to be excavated before development can begin.“ To get an overview of the effect ‘the credit crunch’ has on archaeology, ACE(Archaeology in Contemporary Europe) has opened a webpage dedicated to ‘Archaeology and the Crisis’: “Major changes in the global economy have affected and will…