Native American protesters are standing firm this week, over the ongoing destruction of an ancient sacred mound near Oxford, Alabama. Local tribes are disgusted at a building project, which is stripping the mound’s earth as ‘fill-dirt’ for a retail complex across the road. A Creek Tribal Elder tells NBC13 in this video interview, “It just absolutely makes me sick. I have a really hard time even coming down here and looking at it.” Jackson explains that the tribe have gone down every avenue to secure the future of the mound; the state’s largest. But letters, petitions, emails and protests have…
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It seems that while thousands of Athenians have lost their homes, and forests in the area have been reduced to ashes, one of Greece’s most famous ancient cities has avoided the flames. Yet as the inferno enveloping Marathon subsides, its mayor claims government authorities did nothing to protect it from the worst wildfires to hit the country in over two years. “(We were) begging the government to send over planes and helicopters,” says mayor Spyros Zagaris. Yet none were forthcoming, and the city narrowly escaped flames which ‘raced’ down a hill to threaten ancient museums and monuments. Marathon‘s close call…
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Israeli authorities are raging this week, after what they perceive to be their deliberate exclusion from a World Archaeological Congress on Wednesday. The conference, which concerned ‘overcoming structural violence’ and the negative impact of politics on archaeology, was held in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. The Israeli Antiquities Authority is outraged on three fronts: that their experts weren’t informed of the event; that it was held in Palestine, which has a notoriously bad record on preserving ancient remains; and that the WAC conducted a tour of the Temple Mount and City of David Archaeological Park – even though both currently…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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,…
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The fight to save ancient treasures goes on. There are the bigger battles, the ones to save important heritage sites from war-time destruction see Kashgar, Iran and Iraq. There are the battles against neglect, as in the case of Libya. Then there are the battles against the downright stupid. The careless. The ignorant. The culturally desolate wastelands that can sometimes be found inside the human body. In Western Australia, the state government is set to prosecute a cement and quarrying company for allegedly decimating 10,000-year-old Aboriginal rock art. The Age newspaper reported that the company CEMEX admitted breaching a national…
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Via Dell’ Impero An exhibition opening today at the Musei Capitolini in Rome shows the building of the city’s infamous via dei Fori Imperiali (previously via dell’ Impero), which also tore through the forums of Nerva, Augustus and Trajan, with little regard for the ancient Roman constructions that lay beneath. Via Dell’ Impero – Nascita di una Strada (Birth of a Road) will feature photos, paintings and sketches by professional Roman photographers and artists, including Filippo Reale, Cesare Faraglia and Odoardo Ferretti. The exhibition runs until20 September, documenting the demolition of buildings and the excavations which took place before the…
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What Have the Etruscans Ever Done for us? “What have the Romans ever done for us?” is a classic question from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (and possibly my favourite Roman-related screen moment of all time). But the Romans too could have asked themselves: “What have the Etruscans ever done for us?” The list would be almost as long as the one reeled off to the irascible John Cleese: language, architecture, engineering, gods, rituals – and much more – were all handed down in one shape or form to the Romans from their Etruscan ancestors. But despite the Etruscans’ advanced…