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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Take a girl out for a meal and you may think yourself quite the traditionalist. But most men won’t know quite how traditional they’re being: the world’s first hominids learnt to stand on two feet simply to carry food to woo women, according to one leading expert. Professor Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University made his claim following the much-publicised discovery of ‘Ardi’ last week, the oldest-known member of the human family tree. Ardi, or Ardipithecus ramidus in full, roamed the forests of Ethiopia some 4.4 million years ago – over a million years before the next oldest hominid, Lucy,…
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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…
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Every great king has a throne from upon which he rules, and King Tutankhamun was no exception with the Golden Throne which is one of the finest pieces of royal furniture ever created. With web-exclusive photography of this breathtaking artefact by world class photographer Sandro Vannini, we can see that this was one chair that is definitely fit for a king! Sure, there are other expensive chairs around in Egypt at the moment, but the beauty of the Golden Throne of King Tutankhamun outshines the many chairs throughout time! On display as a treasure of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, (as…
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Virtual DressUp You have made it to King Tut Virtual? Then now it is time to experiment with customising your avatar. In King Tut Virtual, we give you many options to choose from. You can wander around in casual clothes, or decide to really play the part as an adventurer kitted out with accessories, or an Egyptian goddess from the Amarna era. In this guide to virtual fashion, I will focus on some of the glamorous ancient Egyptian dresses and jewellery. These dresses and jewellery were designed by Avagardner Kungler, a very well known virtual fashion designer in the metaverse.…
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Experts think that the head of a marble statue depicting a young boy, found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in Sussex 45 years ago, might actually be the emperor Nero. This theory has yet to be proven and a 3D laser scan of the marble head on 15 October may provide further evidence. The curator of archaeology at Fishbourne Roman Palace, Dr Rob Symmons, and archaeology experts from Bournemouth University, Dr Miles Russell and Harry Manley are working on this project. They noticed during the past year that there are several factors that suggest the marble portrait could be Nero. The…
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Kashgar has for centuries been a destination for visitors from all over the world. Originally, it was a pivotal point on the ancient Silk Road trading routes, standing at the crossroads of the route linking Kyrgyzstan to Islamabad in Pakistan, and the one heading to modern-day Istanbul and Damascus from the larger Chinese cities to the east. Today, a team from the Asia Institute at Australia’s Monash University, working with Chinas Xinjiang Normal University, is hoping to help put Kashgar back on on the traveller’s map this time not as a trade destination, but as a tourist one. Monash’s Kashgar…
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Forget Oktoberfest – if you really want to combine culture with beer the place to be this month is the Penn Museum. The latest biomolecular archaeology techniques pioneered by the University of Pennsylvania have led to reproductions of ancient ales, which will be available to sample at an event on 8th October. The University’s Patrick McGovern, the worlds leading authority on ancient brewing, has worked with the innovative American brewer Dogfish Head to develop the beers, which are not too dissimilar to what it the ancients are thought to have enjoyed. Breathing New Life into Ancient Brews Based on evidence…
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About a mile away from Stonehenge, at the end of the ‘Avenue’ that connects it to the River Avon, archaeologists have discovered a smaller prehistoric site, named – appropriately, after the colour of the 27 Welsh stones it was made of – Bluehenge. The newly discovered stone circle is thought to have been put up 5,000 years ago – which is around the same time work on Stonehenge began – and appears to be a miniature version of it. The two circles stood together for hundreds of years before Bluehenge was dismantled. Researchers believe its stones were used to enlarge…
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Other than Stonehenge and the newly discovered Bluehenge, there are other henges across the lenght and breath of Great Britain, as Ann Morgan explained in her post a couple of months back. What does it take to be a Henge?Henges are at least 20 metres across in size, and have a single raised bank with one, two or four entrances set in strategic positions. Usually in a flat, circular or oval shape, excavations have revealed pottery and bones, fuelling speculation of ancestor worship (or travel by GPS, but that’s a whole other story). Interesting to note is that Stonehenge is…