Most of you wont have relished venturing out from under the duvet at all on this snowy Tuesday morning, let alone doing it before the break of dawn. But around 600 intrepid souls were up before the birds today, and wrapped in the their woollens in time to trudge out into the middle of a frozen Wiltshire field for the rising of the sun shortly after 8am, and the celebration of the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Attendance at the event a chilled-out, smaller-scale alternative to the much headier summer solstice is usually a lot higher (2000 people turned out in…
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Chances are you have never heard of Khirbet ez-Zeiraqoun, also known as Khirbet ez-Zeraqon. Its a 25 hectare fortified town in Northern Jordan that was occupied during a period known as the Early Bronze III (2700 BC -2300 BC). This time period was a high water mark for many great civilizations. The royal burials at Ur, the construction of the Pyramids at Giza and the rise of the twin cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley all these things happened in this narrow stretch of time. Khirbet ez-Zeiraqoun was excavated in the 1980s and 90s, and the analysis…
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Thanks to GPS, satellite imaging and digital communication systems, it’s uncommon for so much as a solitary soldier to go missing on the battlefields of the 21st century. But in ancient times – when civilizations often knew precious little of the world outside their sometimes narrow boundaries – it was apparently possible for entire armies to march against a foreign foe and fall off the face of the earth altogether, without conclusive explanation. Myth has undoubtedly embellished – and in some cases overtaken – the truth behind the famous tales of vanished forces such as the Legio IX Hispana, which…
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Two powerful Bronze Age figures laid to rest with special reverence; two large ritual complexes in places of kingly significance; each in a bend of a river valley; two burials with remarkably well-preserved contents; and two impressive daggers. The quartz-handled dagger of King Tutankhamun is part of probably the most famous treasure hoard excavated from the dry, dusty desert of Egypt by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon 87 years ago; the dagger excavated by teams from Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities in Forteviot in August 2009 is still being conserved after being freshly lifted from a cist burial in the rich…
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A huge granite block, believed to be part of a temple belonging to Egyptian queen Cleopatra, has been lifted from the sea at Alexandria. The nine-tonne stone, quarried in Aswan some 700 miles south of the city, is expected to be transported to a new museum celebrating the sunken city. The block is thought to have been the pillar of a temple to Isis at Cleopatra’s palace. Alexandria became a centre of commerce and education during antiquity, but was razed by a 4th century AD earthquake. The stone is one of a series of underwater discoveries made by the Greek…
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“The whole discovery of Tutankhamun needed both ingredients to make it work. It wasn’t all Howard Carter, certainly not only Carnarvon. But it needed the two of them.” George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, ebbs deeper into the bond which drove two of archaeology’s greatest characters to the biggest discovery of all time. But how did the two men, so different in background and expertise, even forge such a strong relationship? Lord Carnarvon – or to give him his full tongue-twisting title, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon – was an aristocratic explorer and adventurer of the…
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Newsis breaking of a new discovery made by a Canadian archaeologist based in Calgary. Professor Julio Mercader, of the University of Calgary, has found evidence in a Mozambique cave thatHomo Sapienswere eating wild grains as early as100,000 years ago. The discoveryisreported today in the journal Science. It’s being touted as theearliest direct evidence of humans using pre-domesticated cereals anywhere in the world, ina university press release. Scientists have longbelieved that grains played little role in the Stone Age diet. Thisbelief isfueledbythe fact that its difficult to process grain using the tools of the time. The cave thatMercader excavated had a…
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Preserved Mori heads donated to a museum by a collector with a keen interest in natural history. A hand and a few odd bones gifted to a Swedish museum by a sea faring captain. According to details released this week to coincide with the repatriation of Mori ancestral remains to New Zealand, having a preserved head in the corner of your office at work was just the done thing during the 19th century. The recent return by two Swedish museums of Maori remains is part of a large-scale repatriation programme under way at New Zealands national museum. In all, some…
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Locals in the north of England will use their areas rich Roman heritage to fight a major electricity suppliers plans to build wind turbines near their village. RWE npower Renewables one of the UK’s leading renewable energy providers wants to build up to six turbines as part of its Stobhill Wind Farm development. The farm would generate enough electricity to power between 4,800 and 7,300 UK households every year. The company has already conducted preliminary investigations into the site and submitted a scoping report to Durham County Council. A full planning application is expected before the end of 2009. But…
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An illegal Roma gypsy camp might be one of the last places you’d expect to find yourself on an expedition in search of an ancient Roman bridge. But this is what happened to Professor Hans Bjur and his colleagues as they were researching their project on the historical and modern context of one of Rome’s oldest roads. As they made their way through a more neglected corner of Rome’s Ponte Mammolo suburb, they followed the directions to where the bridge should have stood, only to find themselves in the midst of a temporary settlement. While the Swedish researchers were the…