Think of Stonehenge and it immediately conjures up a number of strong visual images the huge, iconic sarsen stone trilithons, naked hippies at summer solstice, weird druid guys with big hoods and a legendary scene from This Is Spinal Tap. But what did it actually look like in its day? Its widely assumed that Stonehenge once stood as a magnificent ‘complete’ monument, but we need to bear in mind that this cant actually be proved about half of the stones that should be present are missing, and many of the assumed stone sockets have never actually been recorded through excavation.…
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A Flint Michigan ex-construction worker with too much time on his hands has solved a 5,000 year old conundrum by proving how it was possible for Neolithic man to erect with nowt but his bare hands, gravity and a lot of patience Stonehenge. Well, sort of. The appropriately named Wally Wallington, who apparently has a passion for moving heavy items, is presently building his very own replica of the legendary standing stones in his back yard. Hes doing it using a variety of elementary techniques that he believes prove Stonehenge could have been built in far less time than modern…
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Various exhibitions featuring the photography of Harry Burton the man responsible for shooting the iconic photographs of the investigation of the tomb of King Tut in the 1920s are currently making their way around the US and Europe (or some of them are about to at least). Theres a small showing at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, the Semmel Replicas Exhibition is in Munich (it will also visit Barcelona, Hamburg, Budapest and Warsaw) and AEI King Tut exhibitions are upcoming in Indianapolis and San Francisco. In case anyone is looking for advice on how to shoot Tut-related relics…
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Any amateur archeologists with too much time on their hands who are finding Where On Google Earth tough, such as me, might find Escape from the Mummys Tomb on the World Museum in Liverpools website slightly closer to their level. You get to guide a small, bug-eyed adventurer around the tomb of Beni Hasan in Egypt searching for ancient treasures (theres a rampaging mummy on the prowl, obviously, so look out) then place them in an appropriate display case in the museum. While fully aware that this is aimed at younger visitors, Im not too proud to confess that I…
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Shes an enduring symbol of feminine beauty, and one of the most iconic and replicated images of ancient Egypt. But is Queen Nefertitis bust discovered in the ruins of Amarna by Ludwig Borchardt in 1912 actually a fake? Apparently so, according to leading Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin. He claims that the painted limestone and plaster sculpture is not the original, carved in the workshop of the Egyptian artist Thutmose 3,400 years ago, but actually a copy, created a century back by an artist commissioned by Borchardt. The historian alleges that when the copy went on display in December 1912,…