The red carpet was rolled out yesterday at one of Rome’s more unusual archaeological sites, while a discreet police presence also surrounded the visit of the president of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano to Palazzo Valentini. President of the Province of Rome, Nicola Zingaretti, called it an historic day, as Palazzo Valentini prepared to open its doors to visitors to the Roman archaeological complex and multi-media museum beneath it opening today for a limited time to the public. Zingaretti said: It is a unique place, where cultural heritage comes together with a structure in every-day use. The occasion for Napolitano’s…
-
-
We, sitting comfortably in front of our computers here in the 21st century, a mocha-choca-frappe-latte possibly close at hand, like to complain a lot about stress. Balancing the demands of work, family, health and the full range of entertainment offered our by multi-channel digital TV package, is after all a trying daily endeavour. Its blissful to believe that life was somehow calmer and simpler in the quaint days of ancient history. But the findings of some new studies have suggested that that firmly was not the case. High levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been detected in the hair…
-
With the current King Tut exhibition on show in Toronto at the moment (check out our preview here) the city has been gripped by Egyptomania. Everybody’s talking about the Boy King, and the buzz permeates the whole city. But what is Egyptomania, and how did it start? Simply put Egyptomania is a fascination with ancient Egypt – its culture, artefacts, architecture, religion and language. The term tends to refer to activities that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries, but a careful look at history will reveal that the phenomenon dates from earlier times. Mummy Parties The first Egyptomaniacs…
-
When Howard Carter said he spied wondrous things upon cracking open the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, he wasnt joking. KV62 was filled with probably the most fantastic collection of ancient treasures ever discovered in one place all from beautiful golden coffins, to giant statues, canopic shrines and a golden throne. Tuts own body was literally stuffed with precious jewellery. In the third instalment of our four-part video series King Tut Revealed filmed by Nico Piazza, and featuring still photography by Sandro Vannini Dr Zahi Hawass, who you can watch in this video revealing the cause of Tuts death and…
-
Driving through the desert in search of whales sounds counterproductive, but I had been assured that if I hired a jeep and drove seventy kilometres from Egypts Faiyum Oasis out into the Sahara this is indeed what I would find. If this was a ruse it was a clever one, and UNESCO were in on it. The cream coloured 4×4 arrived at nine AM. Perfectly on time a good sign. The driver, Mohammed, was a youngish man, perhaps in his early thirties, sporting a thick goatee beard and wearing a red and white chequered headscarf. He smiled and shook my…
-
A prehistoric settlement, which could date back 11,000 years, has been discovered near in England’s East Midlands region. The site, unearthed by a University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) team, was excavated in advance of building works at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. The team’s experts believe the site would have been inhabited by hunter-gatherers, who journeyed to Britain over the icy remnants of a giant super-river we reported yesterday (sadly they weren’t quite around at the time of Stone Age GPS). Britain would only become an island thousands of years later, when the final chills of the last ice…
-
Dr. Zahi Hawass is coming to London, to promote the massive – you can take that quite literally – art book ‘A Secret Voyage’ and the more normal-sized – but still stunning, we’re sure – ‘Inside the Egyptian Museum with Zahi Hawass’. To the list of must-attend events is now added a book signing at the most famous Egyptian-owned location in London:Harrods. Book Signing at Harrods Invited to London’s most famous departement store by owner Mohamed Al Fayed, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (that’s Dr. Hawass) will sign copies of his new books at Waterstones, Third…
-
Cyprus that great crossroads of the ancient world is going to be the focus of a special event happening this Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto Canada. Five archaeologists will give talks about their research and how it is changing our understanding of the island. Heritage Key will be at the event and will publish reports. Cyprus was truly a crossroads of the ancient world. Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans and the Sea People all left their mark on the island. They did it by way of trade, migration, settlement and conquest. Just a month ago Heritage Key reported…
-
Historians and archaeologists are having to rethink the history of Roman Wales, as the foundations of what is very likely to have been a Roman villa have been discovered at Trawsgoed, about eight miles from Aberystwyth. As many as 21 Roman villas are known in south Wales, but until now archaeologists didn’t believe that the Romans had built villa-sized dwellings as far north as Aberystwyth, in Ceredigion. In fact, this could be Ceredigion’s first Roman villa, according to the archaeologists working for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales (RCAHMW). The realisation was made this summer…
-
Just as Cleopatra’s tomb could be discovered at Taposiris Magna, some of her greatest treasures will be winging their way to the States. Next June Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt will be showcased at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute for six months, before heading to three other US cities on a massive tour. The exhibition will bring together some of the best-known artefacts and freshest discoveries from Cleopatra’s city of Alexandria. The Institute’s senior vice president of marketing, programs and business development Troy Collins says the show’s treasures are coming from two major sources: “Land sources from the…