Scotland is to welcome home some of its most iconic relics from the British Museum next May, in a loan deal that sees the famous Lewis Chessmen toured around the country for two years. Yet politicians hailed the move as a ‘step sideways’, as the BM all but ruled out their permanent repatriation. Members of the Scottish National Party have been claiming a cultural victory this week, as it was confirmed on the weekend that 24 of the BM’s 82 charismatic 12th century carvings would be winging their way to four Scottish museums next year. Eleven of the 93 pieces…
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A second century AD Roman shipwreck with a cargo of 130 amphorae containing wine and possibly also olive oil has been the subject of an underwater archaeological survey off the eastern coast of Cyprus. The survey, the first detailed non-invasive archaeological survey conducted at the site since the ship was found in 2007, was completed at the end of August. It found that the amphorae, which are now scattered on the seabed, came from south-eastern Asia Minor as well as the north-east Mediterranean region. Some of the jars contained wine from the south coast of France. Other items provide clues…
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For the last 12,000 years people have clustered near the Great Lakes, using them for drinking, food, sanitation and transportation, and the area is ripe for archaeological exploration. The shorelines of these lakes have have shrunk and expanded as the climate changed, which means that many ancient sites are now underwater. With advances in underwater archaeology now enabling more and more offshore excavations, this would not normally be a problem. However, in this case, it seems that archaeologists have turned up just a few decades too late. A recent massive invasion of zebra mussels is making progress extremely difficult. During…
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While the fate of Afghanistan as a military project for the United States continues to hang in the balance today, as President Barack Obama mulls whether to deploy 40,000 more troops in this “graveyard of empires,” there was a rare piece of good news from Kabul: Hundreds of looted artefacts are back where they belong, in the National Museum, Kabul. You may remember that Afghanistan has managed to distinguish itself by managing to hold onto a huge portion of its cultural and artistic heritage in the form of artefacts dating back as far as 2,000 BC. It’s a wonderful tale…
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The incredible announcement that Stonehenge had a little sister named ‘Bluehenge’ this weekend will have shocked millions – not least the area’s druid community, who for centuries have claimed Stonehenge to be their spiritual home. So it’s no surprise the druidic community officially inaugurated the stone circle this week, which many believe to have been part of a huge funerary network linking its much larger neighbour to the River Avon. The ceremony, Bluehenge’s first since it’s recent rediscovery was performed by three druids including King Arthur Pendragon, stresses the importance of honouring the people who first built Bluehenge, and to…
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Starting this Saturday, the second oldest copy of the Ten Commandments will go on display, at the Royal Ontario Museum, for 80 hours only. The exhibit will run from October 10 to October 18. It runs concurrently with a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that is taking place at the museum. The Israel Antiquities Authority has been very cautious about how much light it gets exposed to which is the reason why it is only going to be put on display for 80 hours. Damage due to light is accumulative and it just gets worse and worse, said Dan Rahimi, an…
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Egypt has decided to suspend all archaeological cooperation with the Louvre, after the French museum refused to return fragments of a Theban Tomb. The news was confirmed today by Dr. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities department. The artefacts were excavated in a tomb near Luxor, and according to Dr. Hawass were stolen by the French. This decision endangers planned conferences at the Louvre, as well as the French team’s current excavations at Saqqara, the ‘city of the dead’. A boycott of the Louvre‘s Egyptological activities also ensures no archeological expeditions sponsored by the French museum could go ahead in…
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Its hard to imagine that anyone could have once lived on the Gilf Kebir, an arid, remote, desolate sandstone plateau the size of Switzerland, located in the far southwest of Egypt. Yet, as we discover in an exclusive new Heritage Key video report by Nico Piazza, around 10,000 years ago water, and with it vegetation and animal and human life, once ran through the barren land Egyptians today call the Great Barrier. This long-forgotten prehistoric civilization that once called Gilf Kebir home left their mark in the form of cave paintings and other forms of rock art, in locations such…
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It was announced last week that the hotly disputed Lewis Chessmen are to be reunited for the first time in 150 years, when a number of the bulk of pieces held by the British Museum in London arrive for a tour of Scotland, the country where they were discovered, throughout 2010 and 2011. They aren’t the only historical artefacts of Scottish origin that the Scots stake a fierce claim to, or have had to fight to get back. Calls for repatriation have been made over all from the Safe Conduct letter – written by the King of France and taken…
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The MilwaukeePublic Museum is going to be the site of a major Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition starting January 22, 2010. The exhibition will feature the recently discovered Jeselsohn Stone, which only came to light recently. The stone is estimated to be about 2,000 years old. It was acquired by a collector, David Jeselsohn, about 10 years ago. Where it was found is unknown, although Jordan has been suggested as a probable location. Its partially legible and, as such, onlychunks of the inscription can be made out. It appears to be written by someone named Gabriel (it has the words I…