• malcolmj

    Why The Bust of Nefertiti Should Be Returned To Egypt

    With the recent reopening of the Neues Museum on Berlin’s Museum Island, the argument over ownership of the Bust of Nefertiti has once again been stoked. The Germans have made the priceless, beautiful, 3,400-year-old sculpture of the famous Egyptian Queen one of the centerpiece attractions of the 200-million Neues. It seems to have only caused the Egyptians to become more resolute in their efforts to get her back. Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass stated recently that he would send a letter in October to Neues Museum directors containing irrefutable evidence in support of the…

  • bija-knowles

    Eco Revamp Plan for Hadrian’s Wall

    A management plan has been published that maps out how the World Heritage Site of Hadrian’s Wall will be conserved, researched and made accessible to visitors and local communities over the next five years. The wall was built in the 120s AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian as the northern frontier of Roman-occupied Britannia. The site today is one of Britain’s most outstanding historical monuments; it recently came second in a list of favourite British sites as voted by the UK’s children – beaten only by Stonehenge. It’s also of educational, environmental and economic value to many…

  • sean-williams

    Ur’s Ritual Deaths Far More Violent than Thought

    New research from an American university may have blown apart a 90 year-old secret of the Sumerian city of Ur. CT scans of crushed skulls from the 4,500 year-old city-state appear to show that palace attendants met a brutal death at the hands of spiked weapons, rather than the tranquil poisoning previously mooted. Research carried out by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1920 discovered a 2,000 burial-strong cemetery, laden with jewels and gold treasures. Their elaborate attire showed they were various courtiers of the time – warriors, handmaids, etc – and seemed to prove human sacrifice was prevalent in the…

  • mary-harrsch

    3D Models of Ancient Artefacts on Show in Arizona’s Virtual Vault

    In an effort to share their extensive collection of pottery from the American southwest with both museum and internet visitors, the Arizona State Museum is collaborating with the Center for Desert Archaeology on the Virtual Vault Project. Models of each vessel are being created using 3DSOM Pro, a tool for automatically generating 3D models from photos of an object. The software is produced by Creative Dimension Software Ltd. “The Vault will go far beyond static electronic exhibit modules that depict a vessel and list its type and ware designation, description, dating, and function – instead, it is being developed as…

  • bija-knowles

    Lists at the Louvre: Umberto Eco Curates ‘Mille e Tre’ Exhibition

    Everyone makes them (some of us more compulsively than others): scribbled on post-it notes, or kept mentally in our imaginations we all make lists. And we’re not the only ones either; lists have been around for a long time possibly since the first writing systems and certainly since Sumerian scribes began to keep accounts in the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia. So what is it about the beauty of a list its numerical order, hierarchy, completeness that makes them such a part of how we like to categorise, order and understand the world? An exhibition opening at the Louvre on…

  • General

    Dr Hourig Sourouzian

    Attribution: Nico Piazza Hourig Sourouzian Egyptologist, Art Historian and Head of the Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project Dr Hourig Sourouzian is a highly-respected German-Armenian Egyptologist and art historian, and the head of the Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project. She is one of the world’s leading authorities on Egyptian royal statuary. Sourouzian was born in Baghdad, to parents of Armenian descent, and grew up in Beirut. She studied Egyptology and art history in the Louvre and obtained a PhD in art history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne with a thesis on Egyptian royal statuary. Sourouzian additionally studied classical Arabic at the…

  • sean-williams

    New York Shrine Returns to Temple of Karnak, Egypt Today

    A lighter chapter to the ongoing issue of repatriating Egypt’s treasures will close today, as an ancient shrine fragment touches down on Egyptian soil after a year of international co-operation. The red granite chunk, part of a shrine, or ‘naos’, was bought by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art from a private collector last October, with the sole intent to send it back to its home nation. Today sees the fragment of the shrine, which commemorates King Amenemhat I, the first pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty (1991 – 1962 BC), finally return to Egypt after a combined effort between the…

  • malcolmj

    ArchaeoVideo – Saving Pharaoh Amenhotep III’s Funerary Temple at Thebes

    18th dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III was the king of Egyptian kings. Under his rule, from around 1391 to 1353 BC, Egyptian civilization reached its very apex all powerful, influential beyond compare, rich beyond dreams and basking in opulent artistic splendour. In a list compiled by American business and financial bible Forbes in 2008, Amenhotep was ranked as the 12th richest person in human history. His funerary temple was therefore never going to be a modest affair. As we discover in a new video interview shot by Nico Piazza with the highly-respected German-Armenian archaeologist leading the excavation of the site, Dr…

  • bija-knowles

    World’s Oldest Statue to go on Show in Rome

    Ancient artworks from Jordan some of them never before seen outside Petra and Amman – are going on display today at Rome’s Quirinal Palace. The star attraction at the exhibition is a statue found at the site of Ayn Ghazal near Amman dating from 7500 BC, one of the oldest surviving statues of its kind and size. The exhibition has been organised by the President of the Italian Republic in honour of the state visit of the King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan. Sixty items will be on display in the ‘Sale delle Bandiere’ at the Palazzo del…

  • bija-knowles

    Rome’s Third Metro Line Delayed Again By Archaeological Discoveries

    While London’s tube had much of its 12 lines and 250 miles of track in place well before the mid 20th century, Rome is still struggling to add its third metro line. The problem is an age-old one: the metro runs deep underground and is deep enough so that the tunnels themselves do not interfere too much with Rome’s layers of buried civilisations. The stations and air vents, however, need to come to the surface and, much to the frustration of the construction company, they more often than not strike valuable archaeological areas. The first line (the unchronologically-named line B)…