An alien necklace in King Tut‘s tomb? Too right, and it’s no myth or quackery. A pectoral found during Howard Carter‘s 1922 expedition to the boy-king’s funerary masterpiece is thought to contain the remnants of a meteor impact in the desert, thousands of years before the first stones were laid in Saqqara. The amazing story began 77 years after Carter’s discovery, when Italian geologist noticed something odd about a yellow-green scarab in the pectoral’s centre. Subsequent tests proved the lump of glass was older than any Egyptian civilization – a lot older, in fact. After much research, experts traced the…
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Lost for moves? Tired of busting out the same old body popping/moonwalk/drunk-uncle-at-a-wedding? You could take your dancing lines from Jacko, Wade Robson or even Michael Flatley (if you don’t mind being alone for the rest of your life). But how about Tutankhamun? The boy-king may be making waves in stateside museums right now, but he’s been influencing the best underground dancers on both sides of the Atlantic for over twenty years with the ‘Tut’ – and I don’t mean Steve Martin’s Saturday Night Live performance. Amateurs be warned: it may take a bit more practice than karaoke night down the…
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Dr Zahi Hawass and a huge team of experts have just finished laser scanning the Great Sphinx, and now the Pyramids of Giza are being surveyed using the latest laser technology. Dr Hawass, who reports on the project in his blog, has employed the services of the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences at the Mubarak Institute for the project, which saw Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara subjected to the same techniques in June by a Japanese group. The team hope to get the most accurate representation of the wonders to date, as Egypt attempts to model the…
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Native American protesters are standing firm this week, over the ongoing destruction of an ancient sacred mound near Oxford, Alabama. Local tribes are disgusted at a building project, which is stripping the mound’s earth as ‘fill-dirt’ for a retail complex across the road. A Creek Tribal Elder tells NBC13 in this video interview, “It just absolutely makes me sick. I have a really hard time even coming down here and looking at it.” Jackson explains that the tribe have gone down every avenue to secure the future of the mound; the state’s largest. But letters, petitions, emails and protests have…
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It seems that while thousands of Athenians have lost their homes, and forests in the area have been reduced to ashes, one of Greece’s most famous ancient cities has avoided the flames. Yet as the inferno enveloping Marathon subsides, its mayor claims government authorities did nothing to protect it from the worst wildfires to hit the country in over two years. “(We were) begging the government to send over planes and helicopters,” says mayor Spyros Zagaris. Yet none were forthcoming, and the city narrowly escaped flames which ‘raced’ down a hill to threaten ancient museums and monuments. Marathon‘s close call…
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From the shimmering death mask of King Tut to the swinging penile replacements of 50 Cent, Gold and silver have been as staple pursuits of humanity as food, drugs and celebrity gossip. But while the dripping opulence of the ancient world may not seem a million miles away from the crass overindulgence of our own ‘enlightened’ age, you might be surprised to find that the two metals have almost exactly the same value now as they did then. According to economist Jeff Clark, that is. When faced with the notion gold was a dead investment, Clark looked at historical valuations…
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Like the ancient world? Like early civilization? Like pyramids? I’m guessing if you’re reading this you probably do, so you might enjoy a new documentary series airing on the Discovery Channel next Monday evening. Out of Egypt examines the links between ancient cultures, our modern fascination with them, and the myths and legends which have endured thousands of years. Fronted by glamorous Egyptologist Dr Kara Cooney, the first episode, ‘Relics’, sees the team travelling to Mexico, Vietnam and Sri Lanka to ask just how powerful a part relics have played in the world’s most famous cultures. Dr Cooney explores the…
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There’s no shortage of Stonehenge replicas in the States: cars, foam and even fridges have made the journey from household commodities to prehistoric pretenders across the Atlantic, with Americans seemingly fixated on Britain’s most famous megalithic site. Yet thus far we’ve seen no Clonehenges that look quite as delicious as this. Just take a look at the obesity-inducing beauty, courtesy of Stateside gourmet ‘Gimmyyummy‘, and tell me you don’t want to rip off one of its juicy megaliths for some munchies. Traditionalists might complain the edible monument doesn’t quite match the dimensions of its 5,000-year-old forebear – but no-one could…
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Today, Zahi Hawass and Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities are celebrating the completion of five major projects in the city of Luxor, which have totalled of 127 million Egyptian Pounds (13.9 million). They include work to restore and develop the famous ancient sites of Luxor Temple and Deir el-BahriTemple of Queen Hatshepsut, as well as the more recent attractions of Abul Hagag El-Loxori Mosque and Howard Carter‘s rest house. The 1286-built Abul Hagag Mosque had been in need of restoration, as its walls and foundations were beginning to crack and take water under the strains of time. Now, after 14…
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Israeli authorities are raging this week, after what they perceive to be their deliberate exclusion from a World Archaeological Congress on Wednesday. The conference, which concerned ‘overcoming structural violence’ and the negative impact of politics on archaeology, was held in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. The Israeli Antiquities Authority is outraged on three fronts: that their experts weren’t informed of the event; that it was held in Palestine, which has a notoriously bad record on preserving ancient remains; and that the WAC conducted a tour of the Temple Mount and City of David Archaeological Park – even though both currently…