Workmen may just have downed tools after laser scanning the Sphinx, but a new Egyptian-Japanese venture aims to seek out even more archaeological hotspots along the Nile, using technology at the bleeding egde of science. The far-flung team, headed by Egypt’s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, hopes to reach areas in the river’s western Delta and nearby El-Beheira governorate, whose geography has resisted conventional techniques thus far. The team has already employed satellite imaging and remote sensing devices to map heritage sites in the area, and experts are confident more will appear when a second phase gets…
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Work is ongoing in China on a major project to restore Daming Palace – the 1,100 year-old ruling centre of the Tang Dynasty in modern Xi’an (formerly the Tang capital, Chang’an) – and around it build an expansive National Relics Park. The project was officially launched in October of last year, and is hoped to be completed by October 2010. Daming Palace was established in 634 AD, in the eight year of the reign of Emperor Taizong. It was the largest of three major palaces in Chang’an, and the political hub of the empire for 240 years, until the Tang…
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Attribution: clare_and_ben Swinside England Key Dates The date of the Swinside stone circle is unknown. The Swinside stone circle is a nearly perfect, 29m diameter circle located in the small hamlet of Swinside, in Cumbria, England. The circle is also referred to as Sunkenkirk, a reference to the devil who — as legend has it — cast the stone into the ground to derail plans to build a church. The circle is largely isolated and is embedded in the land miles from the nearest farm track. Though many of the stones remain standing today, several have been bent inwards —…
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Work is ongoing in China on a major project to restore Daming Palace the 1,100 year-old ruling centre of the Tang Dynasty in modern Xian (formerly the Tang capital, Changan) and around it build an expansive National Relics Park. The project was officially launched in October of last year, and is hoped to be completed by October 2010. Daming Palace was established in 634 AD, in the eight year of the reign of Emperor Taizong. It was the largest of three major palaces in Changan, and the political hub of the empire for 240 years, until the Tang moved their…
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Attribution: JJKDC Rome Italy Key Dates Ostia is believed to have been founded by Rome’s fourth king, Ancus Marcius, in the 7th century BC, although only archaeological evidence from the 4th century BC has been found. It was expanded in the first century AD under the rule of Tiberius. By the 2nd century AD, more than 50,000 people lived there, with that number growing further to 75,000 a century later. By the time Constantine I took reign, the town had started evolving from a port into a popular holiday destination for Roman aristocrats. When the Roman Empire fell, the town fell…
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A possible connection has been established between the tiny, 5,000-year-old carved figurine discovered last month at Links of Noltland on Orkney and a lintel stone found on the nearby remote islet Holm of Papa Westray. Archaeologists identified a potential correlation between the distinctive heavy, curved eyebrows and dotted eyes on the so-called Orkney Venus which is thought to be Scotlands earliest representation of the human face and markings that theyd earlier seen etched into the lintel rock, which lies inside a large chambered Neolithic burial cairn. Mike Brooks, of the Historic Scotland photographic unit, was dispatched to Holm of Papa…
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BRITISH WRITER DISCOVERS THE PHARAOHS LOST UNDERGROUND Wednesday, 16 September 2009 A British writer has staked claim to finally finding the lost underground of the Pharaohs which has been rumoured to exist since the construction of the Great Pyramid nearly 5,000 years ago, creating a stir that is set to rock the Egyptological world. Armed only with the forgotten memoirs of a nineteenth century British engineer, history and science writer Andre Coolings, tracked down the entrance to this forgotten tunnel system and was the first to explore it in modern times. Is it possible that Coolings has beaten the Egyptologists…
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In Zahi Hawass in the Valley of the Kings: Part 1, Dr. Hawass caught us up on how excavations were progressing in the Central Valley area of the Valley of the Kings, particularly with the northern side, between the tombs of Ramesses II and Merneptah, and the area to the south of Tutankhamuns tomb. Watch part 2! In my analysis of what the Part 1 said – and left unsaid – I pointed out that theWestern Valley dig was conspicuously absent from the discussion. Well, it remains such. The second video makes no mention of KV64 at all, much less…
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A mass ancient cemetery, seven rooms large and revealing a number of human bodies, has been discovered dug into rocks near the city of Tartus in western Syria, archaeologists from the Syrian Department of Antiquities have reported. One of the rooms contained a large basalt sarcophagus, with a human face engraved on it. Other small items located have included vessels, two small golden pieces and a clay lamp. The sarcophagus is a large, human-shaped basin with a lid and a protruding shelf all around the edges (see here for a picture of it). Details of the face such as sunken…
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A hat-trick of victories have been won around the world this week in the global fight against the theft and sale of archaeological artefacts a multi-million dollar international industry. The arrest of three men in Bulgaria in connection with their possession of a number of precious Roman coins and other items is particularly heartening, since it offers some sign that the tide might be turning in the struggle against a black-market industry that has been destroying the countrys rich ancient heritage. In the US on Wednesday, the former head of Long Island Universitys Hillwood Museum Barry Stern, was arrested and…