Libya’s Roman and Greek heritage is disappearing as we speak according to a report in the UAE English language paper The National. Sites such as Leptis Magna, Cyrene and Sabratha have been extremely well preserved by Libya’s dry climate and the encroachment of the Sahara, which covered them for centuries. Mosaics, temples, theatres and Roman homes remain very much intact in these ancient cities, providing valuable evidence of the Roman empire’s occupation of Northern Africa during the first to the fifth centuries AD, as well as the pre-Roman Punic and Greek habitations. But a lack of government funding and scant…
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Preservation of ancient sites is not a recent issue. Youve only to look at sites in Egypt and Turkey, and the perilous conditions of worldwide rock art, to see how the long term problems of increased visitors (and hence increased profits) affects an ancient site. But what happens when an ancient site gets in the way of industry? The findings from a study released by the Western Australian State Government in February this year found industry emissions from surrounding mining projects in the Burrup Peninsula area did not have an effect on the rock art, which some believe to be…
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Silchester in Hampshire, UK, stands on the site of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, which is currently being excavated by a team of archaeologists from the University of Reading. The project has been running since 1997, but the archaeologists now believe they have found traces of a settlement that pre-dates the Romans. The excavation has uncovered remnants from a town with a planned street grid possibly one of Britain’s oldest Iron Age towns. The director of the Silchester Town Life Project, professor Michael Fulford, told the BBC: “After 12 summers of excavation we have reached down to the first…
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Resins from pine and cashew trees, and Egyptian moringa oil: these are the essential ingredients of a rich woman’s beauty routine in Italy before the dawn of the Roman empire. The solid, yellow cream was found in an Egyptian alabaster vase belonging to an aristocratic Etruscan lady and is thought to be more than 2,000 years old. The results of a scientific analysis have just been published in July’s edition of Journal of Archaeological Science. While a concoction of these oils may not sound particularly attractive to modern women (let’s face it, the oily unction sounds like a sure pore-blocking…
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There are few ancient history exhibitions that actually lead people to take to the streets in protest – but the Dead Sea Scrolls is one of them. Last Friday a few dozen protesters took to the streets outside the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto to protest against the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. At the same timea group of supporters of the exhibit staged a counter-protest right across the street. Videos, from both sides of the protests, have recently migrated onto youtube. Its the latest chapter in a series of events that have been playing out in the city since…
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The ancient history of Iran is one of the richest in the world. Skirting the Fertile Crescent which nurtured the cradle of civilization, the turbulent nation has seen the rise and fall of the Medians, Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids – until their history was usurped by the Islamic conquests of the 7th century AD. Yet the incendiary movements of the past century, not least the latest political turmoil to hit Tehran, have been somewhat passed over by the world’s archaeologists. Now a leading expert from Britain’s University of Leicester is leading a project to discover just what impact Iran’s White…
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A Time Team episode will tonight investigate one of the most controversial debates in American archaeology: when, and by what route, did the first humans arrive in America? University of South Carolina archaeologist Al Goodyear claims to have found evidence at the archaeological site of Topper in South Carolina that could change our whole understanding about America’s earliest people. The Topper site is one of a handful of what are thought to be Clovis sites discovered since the 1920s in the Americas, including the more famous Mesa Verde and Monte Verde, and the less prettily-named Head-Smashed-In. The Clovis era, around…
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Description Zahi Hawass takes you on a journey through the mysterious passages under Egypts first pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. Join him as he shares exciting news of the first Egyptian-led conservation project for this great monument, and reveals a glimpse of the sarcophagus of Djoser, uncovered as part of the effort to preserve the Step Pyramid for future generations! Related Heritage Experts Zahi Hawass Credits Sandro Vannini Transcription Two years ago, May 10th, 2007 May be this is the most impressive place on Earth. This is the step pyramid that is built by stone. We are…
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The Riverside Project is the largest archaeological investigation ever carried out at Stonehenge. Its basic hypothesis is simple: that Stonehenge was a monument to the deceased, while the nearby Woodhenge and other timber circles in its vicinity were monuments to those still alive. The River Avon was the sacred connection between the two, “a kind of Styx,” comments Mike Parker Pearson, a professor in the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield University and director of the Riverside Project. “It was a river linking the living and the dead.” The success of the initiative – which first broke ground in 2003 and…
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Plato first mentioned the lost city of Atlantis around 2,400 years ago. But now a team of American archaeologists are unearthing the secrets of a 3,500-year-old partially submerged city lying in the Saronic Gulf of Greece. Lying 60 miles southwest of the modern capital Athens, ‘Korphos-Kalamianos’ is just miles away from the ancient city of Mycenae and was most likely built between 1400 – 1200 BC. Florida State University professor Daniel J. Pullen and the University of Pennsylvania’s Assistant Professor of Classical Studies Thomas F. Tartaron discovered the site whilst conducting an initial 2007 study. Pullen claims the pair were…