An amateur enthusiast has reignited Scotland’s rock art heritage this week, by discovering more than 90 ancient cup marks on a rock in Perthshire. The stunning find was made by George Currie at Ben Lawers, near Loch Tay. Similar discoveries have been made in the area, but Mr Currie’s is the first containing so many marks. Some cups still show the signs of individual blows by their maker’s tools, while others are encircled by a ring. The purpose of the marks remains a mystery, though Derek Alexander, an archaeologist for the National Trust for Scotland, is convinced the area is…
-
-
He’s been legless for millennia – in fact he’s been missing everything from the neck down. But this week saw an ancient Akkadian statue’s head, dating from between the 21st and 23rd centuries BC, united with a replica of his body in Iraq’s Baghdad Museum (also known as the National Museum of Iraq). The head, discovered in the ruins of the ancient city of Ashur in 1982, has been conspicuously bodiless – until Berlin’s Pergamon Museum agreed to send its own replica body, which was itself found in 1905. The deal also sees a copy of the head move in…
-
If you were planning on including a bit of Roman heritage in your Summer travel plans, then it’s worth bearing in mind that you don’t have to make the trip all the way to Rome to see something as impressive as the Colosseum. South eastern France was annexed by the Romans as early as 125 BC and the region is rich with a wide variety of monuments dating from the empire that brought it aqueducts, villas, wine and roads more than 2,000 years ago. Here is a look at some of the main Roman heritage sites to discover in the…
-
You know something’s in vogue when it pops up on The Onion, the world’s best-known satirical newspaper. And so it was this week that immortality-seeking First Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang made the grade following the ‘discovery’ beneath Disney World in Orlando of a “legion of terra-cotta Mouseketeers”. According to the spoof article which was kindly sent to us by one of our Heritage Experts, Ethel Davies a Disney World maintenance crew discovered more than 8,000 ‘Mouseketeers’ underneath Cinderella Castle. The statues were thought to date back to 300BC. It was likely constructed during the Pre-Eisnerian period, one of…
-
A few weeks ago, I speculated that Jeff Koons’ statue Michael Jackson & Bubbles was inspired by Tutankhamun. With his deathmask-like face and opulent gilding, Koons’ Michael seemed eerily reminiscent of the boy king. One extremely expensive burial featuring in-your-face-Tut’esque golden coffin later, the parallels between the two icons started adding up. Now, an ancient Egyptian statue in Chicago’s Field Museum has been seen to show a shocking similarity to the face of the late Michael Jackson. The Chicago Sun-Timespointed outthat Jacksoncould have actually modelled himself on the limestone statue: The limestone bust, which went on public display in 1988,…
-
Good news for Maya fans feeling the pinch of recession – Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology (INA) has brought the enigmatic 7th century AD city of Palenque into everyone’s homes with an exciting new online virtual experience. Located in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, Palenque has long been a place of mystery; its majestic buildings, wrapped in a harlequin layer of vines and other flora, evoking dreams of adventure and romance. You almost want to slap on a fedora and crack a whip when you look at the unhinged magnitude of the Temple of Inscriptions, or the crumbling beauty…
-
There has been no shortage of sad stories surrounding the economic hardship of those living in the former Soviet Union. Nearly all of its satellite states, as well as the Russian homeland, have suffered an economic black hole after the Berlin Wall came down, where a tremendous chasm swells between the monied Mafioso and super-rich oligarchy, and the rural peasantry and jobless. And in Bulgaria, a country hiding millennia of prosperity beneath its soil, the tragedy has extended below surface level – as thousands of people loot national treasures to make ends meet. Prehistoric and Neolithic tribes, Ancient Thracians, Greeks,…
-
A blog by Bija Knowles got me thinking about travel to ancient destinations. In particular, Bija talks about Libya and its move towards promoting itself more as a tourist destination. Libya has long been one of the Holy Grails of travel writing because it’s been so difficult to get into (and to get around) it independently until now. This story by Jim Keeble has more on how the country is finally opening up to tourism. It’s the same in countries along the old Silk Road routes, which are more tourist-friendly than ever. This encourages more people to discover the historic…
-
Today’s Flickr Find comes from talented photographer Sean Molin, who beautifully depicts the iconic Stonehenge and portrays it in a dramatic and atmospheric shot. The use of the sepia tint takes away the colour of the shot, leaving the viewer to pay close attention to the great detail in the shot. The dark skies indicate an impending storm advancing on the relic which has braved the elements for millenia, representing the resilience of this ancient monument as it continues to serve as a reminder of of our heritage. Sean Molin notes that he is not keen on showing both the…
-
This year’s Egyptological Colloquium was roundly regarded as a success, as eighteen top Egyptological minds converged on London’s British Museum for two intense days of lectures, opinions and debate on the Book of the Dead. One of the most stunning pieces of Egyptian liturgy, yet a much maligned forum for study, the Colloquium promised some fascinating and truly groundbreaking discoveries on a visually engaging subject. Heritage Key took some time out at the end of the event to speak to a few audience members, and found a somewhat mixed response. Some were keen to stress their enjoyment of the colloquium,…