A team of archaeologists, archaeology students and volunteers have made a major discovery in rural Perthshire, Scotland, and are opening it up to the public this Sunday. The removal of a four ton sandstone slab, discovered last summer at Forteviot, revealed a meticulously constructed Bronze Age-period burial chamber, containing a number of metal and crucially organic remains. The tomb is thought to have belonged to a dignitary of significant importance who lived between around 2300 and 2100 BC, in a region rich with historical connections stretching from the Neolithic period through to medieval times. The dig was headed up by…
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Zahi Hawass has arguably given more than anyone to the field of Egyptology – but now he needs your help, as he aims to raise $2 million to employ the world’s best Egyptologist as professor at Cairo’s American University. The esteemed archaeologist has been Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) for over seven years, and has dedicated most of his adult life to the wonders and mysteries of the ancient civilization. Now he wants to pass the baton to Egypt’s younger generation in style: I always say that to like something is not enough, to love something…
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One of Torontos most unique cultural getaways is a place dedicated to one small, but important, facet of human culture shoes. The Bata Shoe Museum, as its name suggests, is a museum dedicated to the history of shoes. It shows shoes ranging from 4,500 years ago to the modern day. Youcan find shoes worn by Anasazi, the ancient Egyptians and, yes, even Pamela Anderson all in the same building. Shoes in the ancient world are rare archaeological finds.An archaeologist can excavate a decent sized city and not find a single pair. As such the bulk of the museums collection postdates…
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Attribution: lreed7649 Dumfries and Galloway Scotland Key Dates Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Key People Emperor Hadrian Hadrian Hadrian’s Wall (often referred to as the ‘Roman Wall’) is a military fortification constructed of stone and turf by the Roman Empire, to prevent military raids on Roman Britain by the Pictish tribes (ancient inhabitants of Scotland) in the north, to improve economic stability and provide peaceful conditions in Britain. The Roman occupation of Britain had began with Julius Caesar’s successful second invasion of the British Isles in 55 BC. 100 years later Emperor…
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Exorbitant taxes, rising bankruptcy and angry protesters. No, not central London today but the ancient Greek city of Rhodiapolis, some 1,700 years ago. A new excavation of the coastal settlement, located in the Kumluca district of the modern Turkish city of Antalya, has revealed much about the previously little-known maritime hub. Yet the most fascinating artefact thrown up by the project is a large stone tablet, on which the city’s inhabitants had etched their dismay at rising taxes to the then-Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Assistant Professor Isa Kizgut has led the excavations by Akdeniz University’s science and literature faculty. He…
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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 are currently two* ‘explorer robots’ active in Egypt:the Japanese robot researching the Osiris Shaft – it got as far as it could though, and a ‘snake robot’ might be needed to explore further – and the Leeds robot taking a more thorough look at the shafts in the the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Although the ‘Leeds robot’ just began the actual investigation of the secret doors last week, Dr. Hawass revealed at his lecture that on the 31th of July the Leeds team already had a major breakthrough. But that was all information Dr. Zahi was willing to share…
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An archaeological team, led by University of Toronto professor Tim Harrison, has uncovered a cache of tablets in a temple thatwas built duringthe ‘Dark Age’ period, after the collapse of several Bronze Age civilizations. The temple is at the site of Tayinat in southeastern Turkey. Tayinat has a long history, which stretches from the early Bronze Age (nearly 5,000 years ago) to the end of the Iron Age, about 2,500 years ago. The ‘Dark Age’ is a period that begins around the 12th century BC It sees the simultaneous collapse of several civilizations in Europe and the Middle East. In…
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“Mummy.. are we there yet?!”…“Mummy.. are we there yet?!”…“Mummy.. are we there yet?!”…“Mummy.. are w..”*Cue muffled sounds as a hand covers my mouth* I’ll admit that I’ve never grown up. Life’s far too short to do something silly like that – I’ll forever be a big kid who fantasises about climbing up honey waterfalls and jumping off Pterodactyls. Whilst Sean may be off looking at big people movies which show global landmarks being destroyed, I’m perfectly happy flicking through my collection of Disney classics on a quiet night in. The movie release I’m going to share is called “Despicable Me”…
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A recent interview by Lyn with author of North Africa:The Roman Coast, Ethel Davies, inspired me to take another look at Roman archaeological finds across this somewhat forgotten continent. When most people think of the Roman Empire, they immediately envision the temples, statues and amphitheatres spanning across Europe. But the vast coastal border of North Africa was controlled by the Romans too, and they certainly left their mark! Ethel Davies listed her top ten sites across North Africa, which I’ve compiled into an easy to navigate Google Earth Tour, which will whisk you across the continent in just minutes! It’s…