Parts of an ancient underground drain that takes Bath’s famous hot spring water from the Roman Baths to the River Avon are to be explored for the first time in a project to survey parts of the Great Roman Drain, a scheduled ancient monument and fundamental part of the Roman Baths complex. Parts of the drain have not been explored for hundreds of years. Built by the Romans to prevent central Bath from flooding, the Great Drain still performs its original purpose, discharging water from the natural hot springs to – Bluestonehenge’s – River Avon. It definitely needs to be…
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‘What killed the forests of Easter Island?’ is a question that has bamboozled experts for years. Outcomes have ranged from natural disasters, to disastrous ecology – but an invasion of rats? It’s the latest posit doing the scholarly rounds, thanks to University of Hawaii professors Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo. But before you’re conjuring hoards of rodent Jack Sparrows patrolling the Pacific, the pair do have hard evidence backing their claim. It’s widely agreed that Europeans are largely to blame for the demise of the Easter Islanders, famous for their eerie megalithic statues, following its European discovery in the mid-18th…
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I had a great break last weekend and made a one-day shot London/Paris/London via the Eurostar (which is best way to travel this itinerary) to join some family for a special celebration. After lunch we also had (not enough) time to make a quick visit to the Louvre Museum. Given the recent incident where the Louvre was busted by Zahi Hawass for taking “hot” artefacts from Egypt, we decided to go have a look at the Egyptian Collection. The Louvre is even bigger than I had remembered it. Getting to the Egyptian area was not very easy. So the first…
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Having been a tour leader for an adventure travel company, I was interested to read the recently published World Monuments Fund (WMF) guidelines for sustainable tourism, all of which have been inadvertently followed for years by conscientious tourists and tour companies. Getting the Messages Across But what is blindingly obvious to some, it is definitely news to others. I do distinctly remember seeing in Karnak a large group with a very attractive young lady whose attire was more suited to a swimwear catwalk rather than viewing an ancient monument in Egypt. Whilst I watched with some bemusement at her rippling…
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An archaeological mystery may have come to an end, after an enquiry into the origin of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls from the Schyen Collection was finally made public. The report – recently placed in the House of Lords Library – states that bowls currently finding themselves in Britain were likely to have illegally been looted after the Gulf War and should be returned to Iraq. Commissioned by the University College in London in 2005, the results of the enquiry are that the bowls were stolen from the historical site of Babylon some time after the 1991 Gulf war, and that…
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Want to know how to mummify a body but don’t know where to start?Well, you’ve come to the right place. Following on from our video featuring Dr Zahi Hawass, in which he gives Heritage Key a fascinating insight into how mummies are made (see the video embedded below), and an enlightening interview with Bob ‘Mr Mummy’ Briers on mummification, we’ve condensed millenia of wisdom into 7 not-so-easy and certainly not pleasant steps. Egyptian embalmers were masters of their craft, and while we possess a lot of clues about the long and laborious procedure they went through in order to ensure…
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The three day Egypt symposium, last weekend in Toronto, yielded a number of interesting finds. As Heritage Key has reported, researchers unravelled evidence showing that the husband of Djedmaatesankh, a mummy in the Royal Ontario museum, is now located in Chicago. Also, a large amount of info was presented on the discovery of an Amarna era fortress at Tell el-Borg. A detailed article on this can be seen here. Another key piece of research, released at the symposium,is an excavation project at the Seila pyramid. Professor Kerry Muhlestein, of Brigham Young University, delivered an update last weekend on research going…
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Ruinsfrom a Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) cityhave been discovered in Wuyuan County, Hetao Plain, Chinas Inner Mongolia. Its said that the scale of the city ruins is rarely seen in Hetao Plain. In a mean while, the gold mining company is been investigated over irreparable damage done to 100 metersof theGreat Wall in their quest for the precious metal. A new Han City discovered in Wuyuan County Thenewly discovered city ruins are located in Taal Town of Wuyuan County, Bayannaoer City in Chinas Inner Mongolia and were once covered with grassland. The city wall was about 2…
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The three day Egypt symposium, last weekend in Toronto, yielded a number of interesting finds. As Heritage Key has reported, researchers unravelled evidence showing that the husband of Djedmaatesankh, a mummy in the Royal Ontario museum, is now located in Chicago. Also, a large amount of info was presented on the discovery of an Amarna era fortress at Tell el-Borg. A detailed article on this can be seen here. Another key piece of research, released at the symposium, is an excavation project at the Seila pyramid. Professor Kerry Muhlestein, of Brigham Young University, delivered an update last weekend on research going…
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An ancient Mesopotamian city discovered recently in Syria could be lost forever, experts fear. The circular city, dating back 4,500 years in the enclave of Tall Qabr, was found using cutting edge geo-lasertechnology. Its location along the Euphrates River means it may hold the key to boundaries between the Mari Kingdom and its southern Babylonian neighbours, in modern Iraq. Yet the city may be lost forever, thanks to flooding from a modern dam. Its Spanish discoverers, from the universities of Coruna and Vigo, have hastily prepared a report for UNESCO in the hope that it can send scores of archaeologists…